Dongtan 2 New City Illegal Construction Crackdown Poses Challenges

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

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

The city subsequently began on-site inspections starting from the 18th to confirm illegal activities, and decided to take necessary administrative measures including permit cancellation, surcharge imposition, and criminal referral if violations are confirmed.

However, the Eastern Branch Office of Hwaseong City, which directs and enforces against illegal construction and development in the Dongtan area, has only 3 to 4 assigned civil servants and is experiencing difficulties processing the rapidly accumulating related work.

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

Furthermore, suspected illegal activity areas requiring on-site inspections are distributed across the entire Dongtan-myeon, including Sanchuk-ri, Banggyo-ri, Mok-ri, Jangji-ri, and Cheonggyae-ri, making it difficult to even verify 3 to 4 sites per day according to assigned officials.

An official from the Hwaseong City Eastern Branch Office stated, "Normally we handle 120-150 cases of illegal construction and development annually, but in the past two weeks, more than half of a year's workload has surged, causing us to essentially set aside other tasks such as illegal advertisement crackdowns."

Meanwhile, the 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 false residence registration, illegal transfers, and illegal construction in the Dongtan area until compensation for Dongtan 2 New City is completed.