Finance ministry presses local governments on housing supply at state-property council

The finance ministry on Thursday urged provincial and municipal governments to cooperate with the government's push for faster housing supply planning, at a meeting on how state-owned land can be put to wider use.

Huh Jang, second vice minister of economy and finance, chaired the 2026 central-provincial state property policy council at the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation in central Seoul, the ministry said.

The meeting brought together the land, agriculture, environment and forest ministries, the national police agency and the intellectual property office, along with seven metropolitan governments including Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Daegu, Daejeon, Ulsan and South Chungcheong Province, and lower-tier local governments including Dongducheon and Goseong.

Huh asked local governments to back the government's housing supply package, presented in January, by cooperating on urban planning changes and other administrative steps, saying the government would mobilise every policy tool available to expand housing supply quickly and normalise the real estate market.

Local governments brought 17 proposals for using state property. Daegu proposed an inter-agency consultative body to swap city-owned land inside Palgongsan National Park for state land in long-unexecuted park areas. Yeonggwang County, working with Gwangju, asked to exchange the Yeongam police station site for jointly owned land so it can rebuild the station and restore local heritage such as the Yeongam fortress. Dongducheon proposed a free-use permit to turn the city's automatic weather observation station into a science experience facility for young people.

The government said it would strengthen cooperation with local governments on these requests and work out ways to carry them out. The session also covered resolving mutual encroachment between central and local authorities, lifting designations on urban planning facilities left unbuilt for years, and tightening management of intellectual property.

Officials also discussed youth start-up spaces the government is promoting, including the Youth Dream Space programme, which converts state property into spaces tailored to young entrepreneurs, and the Open Campus project, which uses vacant state property. Local governments were asked to take part.

"The central and local governments are core partners moving forward together to create national wealth and return it to the people by maximising the value and use of state property," Huh said.