Daegu City “Hope for Future Development”
“Emergency Martial Law” Causes Delays in Relocation
On the 5th, Daegu City announced that the relocation site for integrated military bases in Daegu has been decided as Daegu Gunwi County. Daegu City planned to relocate urban military bases to the outskirts to develop the vacated sites as new economic growth hubs and to create advanced military environments for the relocated bases. This also includes expectations of increased population and economic revitalization in relocation areas, aiming for mutual civilian-military coexistence.
Amid local governments joining the race to host military bases, Daegu City received proposals from five local governments, including Yeongcheon-si, Sangju-si, Gunwi-gun, Uiseong-gun, and Chilgok-gun, in October 2022, and requested preliminary consultations with the Ministry of National Defense on the relocation in December of the same year. In December 2023, an MOU outlining civilian-military cooperation between Daegu City and the Ministry of National Defense was signed, making the relocation of five bases based in Daegu projected to be completed by 2030.
The relocation targets five military bases, including the ROK Army’s 2nd Operations Command, 50th Infantry Division Command, 5th Logistics Support Command, and the Air Force’s 1st Missile Defense Brigade and Air Defense Artillery School. Apart from Chilgok-gun, which withdrew its hosting proposal in January, Gunwi-gun, Sangju-si, and Yeongcheon-si were selected as preliminary candidates. The final site selection evaluation was conducted by the Daegu Policy Research Institute, an external expert body, which recommended Gunwi-gun based on factors like project costs, procedural ease, and local acceptance.
The relocation project will be carried out via a “donate and lease” model, wherein project developers donate facilities to the military in exchange for land for development. With the decision finalized, Daegu City plans to enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Ministry of National Defense regarding the donation-transfer project in the first half of next year and is preparing for this.
The comprehensive plan involves construction of military facilities at the relocation site, establishment of a civilian-military coexistence town, development of donation-transferred land, and commercialization of the donation-transfer project. This plan will form the basis for negotiations with the Ministry of National Defense to draft an agreement memorandum, which will then undergo reviews by the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Economy and Finance for finalization.
Once the memorandum is finalized, the selection of business operators, design and construction stages will follow, aiming for the relocation to be completed by the end of 2030, after which development of the vacated sites will commence in earnest. However, there are concerns that the process of reaching agreements with the Ministry of National Defense may encounter difficulties due to the delay in preliminary candidate site selection, initially expected last year, and compounded by the absence of the Minister of National Defense following the emergency martial law situation.
Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo expressed gratitude to involved local government officials and citizens for their passionate efforts and interest since October 2022, and anticipates that the finalized relocation site will lay the foundation for Daegu’s development over the next 100 years while enhancing national security with the expeditious progression of the civilian-military coexistence relocation project.