Military facilities have been relocated or dismantled outside the urban space for reasons such as the diffusion process of the city and national policies. The site generated at this time is defined as a former military site, and the characteristic of ...
Military facilities have been relocated or dismantled outside the urban space for reasons such as the diffusion process of the city and national policies. The site generated at this time is defined as a former military site, and the characteristic of the former military site is that it is easy to develop because it is state-owned and supplies new large-scale land to existing urban space. In Korea, 297 military units have been relocated over the past 50 years, and Endowment and Concession Project was used as a method of development. The project to integrate and relocate not only the Korean military but also the U.S. military bases in Korea is in the final stage, and the relocation of military airports in Suwon, Daegu, and Gwangju is also visible. In addition to the crisis of regional extinction, a civil-military mixed-use town where the relocated military units and the private sector can coexist has been presented as a major policy task and is being studied.
However, since prior research has been conducted so far limited to the negative effects of military facilities, friction factors generated during relocation, and legal and institutional alternatives, there is a lack of cases demonstrating how military-owned facilities are perceived and how they affect urban spaces, so it is necessary to present implications for the civil-military mixed-use town policy divided into military zone and civil-military mixed-use zone through related research. Therefore, this study attempted to present the results of how military substitution(welfare) facilities, which are the products of the endowment and concession project, are perceived and affected in urban space.
The target site of the study was Wirye New Town, which had been in place for more than 10 years among the endowment and concession projects, and was selected as an urban development project in the former military sites, and the temporal range was set from January 1, 2024 to August 31, 2025. Seven facilities owned by the Ministry of National Defense in Wirye New Town were selected for analysis.
Prior to the survey and statistical analysis, which are the main research methods of this study, the analysis of the target site was conducted through map analysis and literature review after the field survey conducted from September 19 to 21, 2025. Based on the development background, characteristics, friction factors, and the status of facilities owned by the Ministry of National Defense derived from the analysis of the target site, the survey questions and statistical analysis model were established. The survey collected 211 responses online from November 17 to December 5, 2025, and analyzed the results. The statistical analysis used a hedonic price model that applied actual distance-based variables to 1,262 residential real estate(apartment) transactions and 180 commercial real estate transactions in Wirye New Town.
First, as a result of the survey, there was no significant difference between ordinary citizens and military officials in the perception of the background that Wirye New Town was developed from the former military site, and military officials responded more than ordinary citizens to the fact that there were facilities owned by the Ministry of National Defense in Wirye New Town. In addition, Wirye StarHills drew a common response that both classes selected as the most suitable facilities, and that golf driving range and dormitory as the most unsuitable facilities. As the reasons for suitable facilities, both classes responded to 'military housing and welfare', and there was a difference in the reasons for unsuitable facilities. For ordinary citizens, they responded on the grounds that the most unsuitable facilities would be negative for the prices of neighboring commercial real estate.
Second, in the hedonic model applied as a result of statistical analysis, facilities owned by the Ministry of National Defense showed a positive effect on the actual transaction price of nearby apartments. However, the actual transaction price of nearby commercial real estate showed some mixed results depending on the location, and in the model that gathered facilities within the walking area and categorized them into ‘Songpa’, ‘Hanam’, and ‘Seongnam’, only the national defense business district and military apartments located in Geoyeo-dong, Songpa-gu, had a positive effect on nearby commercial real estate, and no statistically correlation was found in Hanam-si, Seongnam-si.
The significance of the research results is as follows. First, by quantitatively demonstrating the pure effect of military-owned facilities on nearby real estate prices, the results contrary to the existing negative perceptions were identified. Through this, it is possible to achieve public objectives and have a positive effect on the local community, therefore an academic basis for supporting related prior research has been prepared. Second, based on the results of the survey, policy implications were derived by suggesting specific facility planning directions for coexistence of the civil and military. Third, by confirming the empathy on the housing and welfare of military, it can be presented as a basis for positive social consensus in promoting related policies in the future.
The limitations of this study were that it was difficult to generalize the research results due to spatial and temporal limitations, the failure to separate the influence of individual facilities due to multicollinearity issues, and the lack of samples of commercial real estate and external influences due to the development transition period. However, if the method and variables presented in this study are developed in the future and data are accumulated following the case study of the development of military facility relocation sites through the endowment and concession project, it will be able to contribute to the deployment and utilization of facilities owned by the Ministry of National Defense that can coexist with the civil and military in the future.