Single-story houses with gardens reportedly account for 20% of the new homes being built as part of a large-scale housing project in Taepyong District, one of Pyongyang’s outlying districts. North Korean authorities appear to be building townhouses — of a sort — in the suburban district.
A source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Oct. 28 that while high-rise (over seven stories) and mid-rise (under seven stories) apartments will account for most of the new homes in Taepyong District, about 20% will be built separately from the apartment complexes in keeping with the suburban character of the neighborhood. These homes have been designed as single-story houses for two families.
The source said builders plan to add small front yards to the homes. “You can’t have private gardens in central districts of the city,” he said.
Taepyong District lies at the southwestern edge of town, bordering on Nampo’s Chollima District.
The builders are apparently constructing some of the homes as detached homes with gardens, making use of the district’s suburban character far from downtown, as well as the ease in securing land. Given that two families are to live in one single-story house, it seems the homes will be something akin to townhouses.
The source said Taepyong District is a veritable wilderness with lots of land to build on if you clear the rice paddies, fields or hillsides. He said the district has been divided into plots on which subcontractors are building homes.
“Public transportation is currently inconvenient in Taepyong District,” he said. “There’s a plan to operate intercity bus service while they build the homes.”
The authorities are reportedly subcontracting the construction to various government institutions and labor brigades, assigning them particular plots.
The source said different institutions are taking charge of building several blocks or rooms on the plots. Units taking part in the construction include government institutions and enterprises, provincial labor brigades, labor brigades from individual districts of Pyongyang, teams from the Socialist Women’s Union of Korea and labor brigades mobilized on a weekly basis.
The source said that in principle, the builders should be entirely self-sufficient in constructing the exteriors and interiors of the homes. “But in fact, we’ll have to wait and see if getting the construction materials goes smoothly,” he added.
North Korea is prioritizing supplies to the construction of 10,000 new housing units in Pyongyang, a project directly ordered by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un himself. Problems are already starting to emerge in some regions, however, resulting from the single-minded race to build the homes using inferior materials.
Daily NK had previously reported that the authorities initiated a sweeping inspection of housing construction in Songsin District, part of the “10,000 home” project, due to the use of poor materials.
With supplies hard to come by, unprofessional construction units are competing to build faster, leading to shoddy work.
Despite this, North Korea is accelerating efforts to build housing for 50,000 families in Pyongyang.
The source said the families to be evicted from Kimchon District must move out by the end of the year after receiving their eviction certificates. He said the local construction brigades of several districts in Pyongyang such as Moran, Chung, Potonggang, Sosong and Ryongsong are building on the plots allotted them according to the plan to build 50,000 homes.
North Korea pushed the creation of a satellite city for a million people along the Youth Hero Motorway linking Pyongyang’s Mangyongdae District with Nampo in 2001, but this initiative fell apart due to economic difficulties. Later, in 2009, the authorities pushed a project ordered by then-leader Kim Jong Il to build 100,000 homes in Pyongyang by 2012. They tried to build 65,000 homes in Taepyong District at the time, but this failed as well due to insufficient supplies and money.
The source said the Taepyong District project is tied to the dying instructions of Kim Jong Il, who reportedly wanted to build modern housing for the people in a place between the Kangsong Steel Works (now the Chollima Steel Complex), which his father Kim Il Sung visited, and his “hometown” of Mangyongdae. The source added that Kim’s dying wish aside, there is no place to build 50,000 new homes over five years in downtown Pyongyang. Because of this, the initiative reflects the reality that they needed to expand outlying areas to meet the state’s five-year construction plan.
This means the construction in Taepyong District began from a cocktail of realistic concerns and political considerations.
The source added that the State Planning Commission and Ministry of State Construction Control had already discussed the site of the new homes during meetings during the Eighth Party Congress. Builders must carry out the construction in Taepyong District “without fail,” said the source, since the site was selected during the congress.
The source said local farmers and workers as well as residents of Mangyongdae District will move into the new homes in Taepyong District.
He said residents with eviction certificates, workers and farmers from Mangyongdae and Taepyong districts and cadres from nearby military bases will move into the apartments currently under construction. In particular, local farmers, office workers and technicians at nearby vegetable farms will move into the new homes.
Eviction certificates are issued by city or district urban management divisions to residents of single-story homes demolished to make way for new construction. The certificates become occupancy certificates when construction of the new homes is complete.
The source said the evictions ended on Oct. 2, adding that only a handful of people were evicted. All of them are staying at relatives’ homes nearby or downtown or in upstairs or downstairs spaces of other people’s houses.
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