Seoul mayoral candidates Jung Won-oh of the Democratic Party and Oh Se-hoon of the People Power Party, who have traded barbs for days over the city’s housing policy, clashed again on Monday over whether “villas” can help ease the rental crunch.
Oh’s campaign said Jung’s suggestion that supplying villas and similar housing could resolve the monthly rent and jeonse squeeze within two to three years was “dangerous.” Jung’s camp responded that villas are a legitimate form of housing and accused Oh of an apartment-only mindset.
Park Yong-chan, a spokesperson for Oh’s election committee, said in a statement that Jung “caused trouble again,” criticizing Jung’s remarks as implying the rental crisis could be solved in two to three years by supplying villas.
Park was referring to Jung’s comments the previous day at a meeting with district chief candidates, where Jung said the city could craft measures within two to three years and increase supply by using villas, officetels and “living-type lodging facilities.”
Park argued the core cause of Seoul’s rental turmoil is an “absolute shortage” of apartment rental supply stemming from what he called the Lee Jae-myung administration’s misguided real estate policies. He said criticism is mounting that Jung is offering an “absurd” alternative while ignoring the root problem.
Kim Jae-seop, a lawmaker who serves as a co-chair of Oh’s campaign, also attacked Jung’s remarks. In a Facebook post, Kim criticized what he called a “Jung Won-oh-style ‘crab, carp and frog’ theory,” saying Jung lives in a “proper apartment” while telling Seoul residents to live in villas.
Kim wrote that the Democratic Party’s “hypocrisy DNA” was showing again, referring to a phrase used to criticize telling ordinary people not to aspire upward.
Kim also said President Lee Jae-myung raised barriers for young people and newlyweds seeking apartments through what he called a “double shackle” of lending restrictions and the land transaction permit system. He said offering non-apartment housing as an alternative to people who want to live in apartments is either deceiving Seoul residents or “nonsense.”
Jung’s camp said Seoul’s housing problems should not be viewed only through the lens of apartment supply.
Lee Ju-hee, a spokesperson for Jung’s campaign, said Oh was “looking in the wrong place,” adding that criticism of so-called “villa phobia” was aimed not at residents who live in villas but at Oh’s “narrow” insistence on apartments.
“Villas are clearly one form of housing,” Lee said, arguing that the city should consider flexible and diverse housing types. She said Oh’s apartment-centered view shows a “fatal” lack of policy imagination and flexibility, and called it “shallow” to reduce Seoul’s housing prices solely to a shortage of apartment supply.
Lee also accused Oh of failing to move beyond an outdated view of housing as a tool for speculation and investment, and said it would be “close to impossible” to expect innovative city administration given what she called Oh’s decade of uncommunicative governance.
Kim Nam-geun, a lawmaker who heads policy for Jung’s campaign, joined the criticism, saying Oh was “consistently distorting” Jung’s remarks. Kim said that given the time required for redevelopment projects, it is the mayor’s duty and a public role to reduce supply-demand instability by quickly supplying non-apartment housing such as villas and officetels.
Kim said Oh’s camp had turned Jung’s comment — that “if the public sector leads the supply of villas and officetels, it can be done in two to three years” — into a claim that “the rental crunch will be solved in two to three years,” calling it a “clear falsehood.”
* This article has been translated by AI.
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