Illegal Construction Crackdown in Dongtan 2 New City Creates Headaches for Hwaseong City

Hwaseong City recently received notification from the government's speculation investigation task force regarding the crackdown results on suspected illegal construction and development activities in the Dongtan 2 New City area. The city has begun on-site inspections for administrative measures, but is facing difficulties due to personnel shortages.

According to the Eastern Branch Office of Hwaseong City on the 21st, the government speculation investigation task force launched crackdowns in the Dongtan area starting from the 1st, shortly after the announcement of Dongtan 2 New City. Within approximately two weeks, the task force identified 81 suspected illegal construction and development activities—including warehouses, vinyl greenhouses, container houses, and paddy field landfill—directly linked to compensation, and reported them to the city.

In response, the city began on-site inspections starting from the 18th to confirm illegal activities. The city decided that if illegality is confirmed, it will take necessary administrative measures including permit revocation, penalty charges, and criminal referral.

However, the Eastern Branch Office of Hwaseong City, which oversees guidance and crackdown on illegal construction and development in the Dongtan area, has only 3 to 4 civil servants handling the rapidly mounting related tasks, creating significant difficulties.

Given the situation, the city has mobilized auxiliary police officers to support on-site inspection work, but experts point out that effective task processing is difficult to expect.

Moreover, the suspected illegal activity areas requiring on-site inspections are distributed across the entire Dongtan area, including Sanchuk-ri, Banggyo-ri, Mok-ri, Jangji-ri, and Cheonggyae-ri, making it difficult even to verify 3 to 4 sites per day, according to the civil servants in charge.

An official at the Eastern Branch Office stated, "Normally we handle 120-150 cases of illegal construction and development activities per year in administrative measures, but in the past two weeks alone, more than half a year's worth of work has poured in, making it virtually impossible to work on other tasks such as cracking down on illegal advertisements."

Meanwhile, a joint task force composed of officials from the Ministry of Construction and Transportation, Gyeonggi Province, Hwaseong City, and the National Tax Service plans to continue speculation crackdown activities—including address fraud, illegal transfers, and illegal construction—in the Dongtan area until compensation for Dongtan 2 New City is completed.