‘Sangam DMC Lotte Mall’ passed deliberation in Seoul in 8 years… Full-scale development

Input 2021.01.27 22:06

Lotte Group’s Sangam Digital Media City (DMC) complex shopping mall development project (Sangam Lotte Mall), which had been drifting for eight years because it did not obtain a permit from Seoul, finally passed the Seoul city deliberation.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 27th that the Joint Urban-Architecture Committee had revised and passed the’Sangam DMC Special Plan Area Detailed Development Plan Decision’ containing specific plans related to Lotte Mall. As the deliberation passes, the Sangam Lotte Mall is expected to start construction within this year as early as possible.

The city designated 2,644m2 of the Sangam Lotte Mall site as a special planned area in June 2011 to attract a shopping mall. In 2013, he sold the land to Lotte Shopping for 19,774 billion won through competitive bidding.

Lotte prepared a detailed development plan in September 2013 and requested approval from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, but the city did not give permission for a win-win agreement with a nearby traditional market. Lotte will organize a win-win task force (TF) as required by the city, reduce the ratio of sales facilities (82.2→67.1%), remodel the offices of the merchant prosperity association at nearby markets and shopping malls, and preferentially hire local residents. The plan’ was presented in March 2017. 16 of the 17 nearby traditional markets favored this plan, but when the remaining one objected, the Seoul Metropolitan Government delayed deliberation on the detailed development plan.

Lotte filed a lawsuit in April 2017 saying that it was illegal for the Seoul city to decide on a detailed development plan for a long period of time, and the city of Seoul said that it would proceed with the deliberation regardless of the win-win consultation when a loss was expected. However, in 2018, former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, instructed to approve the detailed development plan after a win-win agreement with the remaining mayors and drifted again.

This matter led to an audit by the Auditor in 2019, and the auditor said, “The city of Seoul unreasonably delayed the deliberation process, undermining the trustworthiness of the administration and restricting Lotte’s exercise of property rights.” He pointed out that he lost the opportunity for activation. Subsequently, Mayor Park was notified to “Process the decision of detailed development plans that are delayed for a long time,” and demanded caution that “do not unfairly handle the work of urban planning decisions such as delaying deliberation for a long time without legal basis.” did.

The city said that after deliberation by the City and Architecture Joint Committee on that day, “It is expected to invigorate the local economy by expanding insufficient central commercial and living convenience facilities and creating local jobs.”