“We can’t stand this anymore.”
A luxury house has been under construction for a year and five months. But in front of the site, residents from the neighborhood are demanding the building owner to “restore the road to its original state.” The owner of this house is none other than Song Joong Ki.
Song purchased the land in November 2016 and started constructing a two-story building with a three-story underground in February last year. However, about 50 residents of Itaewon 2-dong have recently started to raise their voices against this construction. “We can no longer stand by as Song Joong Ki and his crew continue to neglect the noise complaints and safety issues.”
The problem started last December when Song’s contractor turned a relatively flat road into a sloping road. As a result, one side of the road has inclined about 30 to 50 cm (12 to 20 inches) from before.
One resident shared, “They created this slope to connect the road to the building’s parking lot. But that has made this narrow road even more dangerous, and the bottom of the vehicles was scratched.” On June 15th, a loaded truck got into an accident while riding up this road and collided with a structure. Though there were no casualties, residents complained that it was a “highly expected accident with a high chance of recurrence.”
The Road Traffic Division of Yongsan-gu Office said that Song never obtained official permission to construct the road. Moreover, they stated that they had sent several requests to him to “restore the road to how it was before.” However, even on July 1st, the road remained the same without any revisions.
To which the contractor explained, “Initially, residents complained that the road was too narrow for two vehicles to pass. So Song gave his private land to the residents to widen the road.” He then added that the accident that occurred last month was caused due to overloading, not the road.
Yet, some residents are also complaining about the safety and noise issues.
“One of the residents was cleaning out the flower bed. And because they didn’t properly install the safety fence, a drill dropped out of nowhere. That could have caused a serious accident. Also, the noise that has continued for over a year is unbearable,” another resident added. “The main gate of Song’s building is located in Itaewon 1-dong, where the CEOs of large corporations live. But the parking lot is located in Itaewon 2-dong. If we were residents of 1-dong, would he still have left things so dangerous?”
In response, Song’s agency HiSTORY D&C explained, “These things happened inevitably during the construction, but we should have been more careful. We are well aware of all the complaints, and we will mend the situation asap.”
Source (1)
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