When Will the 13000 Homes at the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center Be Built? Approval Status and Steps Remaining Before Move-In
As of 2026-08-26 at 7 a.m., the proposal to supply 1–13000 homes at the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center in Gangnam is not an approved housing project but an alternative development concept presented by the Seoul Metropolitan Government to the central government. The project would need to go through relocation of the water reclamation center, finalization of urban and project plans, regulatory approvals, and housing construction. Neither an application schedule nor an expected move-in date has been determined.
With the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center emerging as a new candidate site alongside discussions about housing development in Yongsan Park, the first and most important distinction is that a concept suggesting 13000 homes could be built is entirely different from a confirmed commitment to supply 13000 homes.
Has the 13000-Home Project at the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center Been Approved?
Not yet. The Seoul Metropolitan Government's proposal involves relocating the existing Tancheon Water Reclamation Center and redeveloping the approximately 40–50㎡ site into a mixed-use district combining housing, parks, advanced industries, and research and development facilities.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon explained that using approximately half the site for residential purposes could accommodate anywhere from at least 1 homes to as many as 13000 homes. However, these figures do not represent an approved housing allocation under a finalized development plan or the number of homes officially available for applications. They represent the potential housing supply estimated at the current conceptual planning stage.
Therefore, three things should not be treated as confirmed facts at this stage.
There is no guarantee that 13000 homes will actually be built, no confirmation that all the homes will be designated as youth housing, and no announced application schedule.
The number and types of homes could change depending on negotiations between the central government and the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the details of future development plans.
Where Exactly Is the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center Located?
The Tancheon Water Reclamation Center is located at 625, Gaepo-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The Tancheon Center, operated by the Seoul Water Recycling Facilities Corporation, is currently an active facility. It is listed as approximately a 10-minute walk from Daecheong Station on Seoul Subway Line 3.
Location is one reason the Seoul Metropolitan Government has identified the site as a potential residential development area. Mayor Oh cited access to public transportation, including Daecheong and Hangnyeoul stations, as well as the surrounding environment near Tancheon Stream and Daemosan Mountain, as advantages.
However, this is not vacant land ready for development. Water reclamation facilities are currently operating on the site, and recreational sports facilities are also in use. The Tancheon Water Reclamation Center is listed as an operating facility in Seoul's public sports facility information system.
That makes the starting point fundamentally different from building apartments directly on unused publicly owned land.
What Must Happen Before Housing Construction Can Begin?
The biggest prerequisite is deciding how the functions of the existing water reclamation center will be handled.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government's proposal does not involve leaving the existing center in place and adding housing on any unused portions of the property. Instead, it calls for relocating the water reclamation center elsewhere and then redeveloping the existing site as a mixed-use district. The proposed layout would allocate approximately half of the 40–50㎡ site to residential facilities, with the remainder used for parks, advanced industrial facilities, R&D facilities, and other purposes.
For the proposal to become an actual development project, it would generally need to proceed through the following stages: finalizing a relocation plan for the water reclamation facilities → developing a detailed redevelopment plan → consultations with relevant authorities and urban planning procedures → project planning and various regulatory approvals → relocation of existing facilities → site preparation and housing construction → recruitment of prospective residents.
In particular, because the water reclamation center is essential infrastructure responsible for treating Seoul's wastewater, it would be difficult to simply shut it down and build housing in its place. Actual redevelopment would become feasible only if replacement facilities or a relocation plan could be established without interrupting the center's existing functions.
When Could Residents Move In?
There is currently no confirmed move-in year.
Mayor Oh suggested that relocating the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center could take approximately 4–5 years, followed by another 4–5 years to build the housing. However, these are estimated durations described by the mayor, not an approved project timetable. With negotiations with the central government and the development plan still unresolved, it would be premature to calculate a specific move-in year in the 2030s based on those estimates.
For example, simply adding 4–5 years and another 4–5 years indicates that a substantial amount of time could be required. In practice, however, some procedures might proceed simultaneously, while selecting a relocation site or obtaining regulatory approvals could take additional time.
Therefore, rather than focusing on estimates of how many years the project might take, it is more useful to check whether a relocation site has been selected, whether the central government has agreed to proceed, and whether the urban planning process has formally begun.
Who Would Be Eligible to Apply if the Development Includes Youth Housing?
This has not yet been determined either.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government has provisionally named the proposal the Southeastern Youth Specialized Industrial Complex. The concept is to connect employment opportunities and housing for young people by combining residential facilities with advanced industrial and R&D facilities. However, no details have been announced regarding the proportions of rental and for-sale housing, income requirements, age limits, asset thresholds, Seoul residency requirements, or whether a housing subscription savings account would be necessary.
Current housing supply regulations provide several separate allocation categories, including special allocations for young people in national housing projects, as well as categories for households with newborn children, families with multiple children, newlyweds, and first-time homebuyers. However, even if the Tancheon site is eventually approved as a development project, the applicable housing allocation system will not be known until a separate project plan and resident recruitment criteria are announced.
Therefore, the phrase 'youth-focused' should not be interpreted as confirmation that everyone within a particular age range will qualify or that all units will be public rental housing.
Could Housing at Tancheon Be Supplied Sooner Than at Yongsan Park?
At present, it is impossible to conclude which location would lead to actual housing supply sooner.
The main Yongsan Park site faces a separate legal obstacle under the current Special Act on the Creation of Yongsan Park. The law generally requires the entire main site to be developed as Yongsan Park and restricts changes to non-park uses or disposal of the land. As a result, concerns have been raised that legislative amendments would first be necessary before housing could be supplied on the main park site.
Tancheon has a different development structure, but it faces the major prerequisite of actually relocating the water reclamation center.
Ultimately, the two candidate sites face different obstacles. For Yongsan, the key variables are legislative amendments, the return of land, and soil remediation. For Tancheon, the key variables are relocating existing urban infrastructure and completing the subsequent development procedures. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has also previously stated that actual housing development in Yongsan Park would require consultations with the National Assembly, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Yongsan District, the U.S. military, and other parties, as well as resolution of legal issues.
What Announcements Would Show That the Proposal Is Moving Closer to Actual Housing Supply?
Whether the proposed 13000 homes at Tancheon become an actual housing supply project can be assessed by examining future official documents and administrative procedures.
The first benchmark is whether the central government and the Seoul Metropolitan Government formally include the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center development in an official housing supply policy. Next, the method and destination for relocating the water reclamation center must be specified, followed by approval of a plan detailing the development area, number of homes, and housing types.
Mayor Oh has stated that the relevant master planning study has already been completed and that an assessment of private-sector developers' eligibility is underway. However, completion of the planning study does not itself mean that the 13000-home housing project has received final approval.
For people waiting to apply for housing, it is more important at this stage to monitor future announcements of official housing supply figures, the development model, housing types, and resident recruitment notices than to calculate hypothetical sale prices or application competition rates.
The current situation can be summarized in one sentence.
The proposal to supply 1–13000 homes at the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center has emerged as a new large-scale housing development candidate in Gangnam, but as of 2026-08-26 at 7 a.m., the project itself, the housing supply volume, the application schedule, and the move-in timetable remain unconfirmed.
Related Articles
Kim Min-seok Visits Flood-Damaged Geoje, Making Okpo-dong His First Stop Immediately After Election