Osan City Responds to Ministry of Interior and Safety's Point of Contention Regarding Bird Park: "Will Resolve Before Completion of Donated Asset Handover"

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Seo Dong-young] Osan City issued a statement on the 20th regarding the Ministry of Interior and Safety's point of contention over the illegal nature of donated asset handover for the Natural Ecological Experience Center (Bird Park) being constructed on the roof of City Hall.

The Ministry of Interior and Safety recently conducted guidance and inspection on Osan City's Natural Ecological Experience Center and determined that the donation conditions, which go beyond the gratuitous use and profit-sharing permissions prohibited under the Public Property Act, constitute conditional donations. This is a mechanism to prevent private entities from monopolizing the operational rights of public facilities through donations. The Ministry of Interior and Safety demanded that Osan City resolve the 'conditions' before the completion of donated asset handover.

The Ministry also identified procedural issues regarding the City's omission of City Council approval for changes to the public property management plan.

In response, Osan City stated, "The issue of donated asset handover for the Natural Ecological Experience Center is currently only in the preliminary agreement stage necessary for the construction phase; the formal donated asset handover procedures have not been fully completed," and added, "After the facility is completed, the private operator will hand over the facility to Osan City, and the process will involve calculating the gratuitous use profit-sharing permission period and operating some of the facilities accordingly."

The City further emphasized, "While the construction of the Natural Ecological Experience Center is in progress, it is highly inappropriate to prematurely prejudge the final illegality and express as if illegal activities have occurred in the construction of the Natural Ecological Experience Center, as some media reports and some unsound political forces have claimed."

Osan City continued, "We were merely informed that there is a risk of violating the regulation stating that 'conditions such as operational rights delegated through service contracts cannot be imposed beyond gratuitous use profit-sharing permission conditions,' and that this should be resolved before the formal completion of donated asset handover."

Osan City stated, "Fundamentally, the Natural Ecological Experience Center donor was granted only gratuitous use profit-sharing permission for a portion, not all operational rights. It is difficult to agree with the Ministry of Interior and Safety's point of contention that all operational rights beyond the donated asset handover conditions were granted to the donor," while adding, "We will rewrite the contents of the financial agreement to eliminate any room for misunderstanding. Regarding the ordinance issue, we plan to delete all admission fee-related provisions from the prepared draft as pointed out, so there are no problems."

Regarding the omission of City Council approval for changes to the public property management plan, Osan City stated, "Although the area increased, whether the standard price increased by more than 30% will be determined through appraisal evaluation after completion, and if deemed a matter for subsequent approval, we will proceed with the relevant procedures accordingly."