Paju sues Ewha University for cancelling campus plan

The Paju city government on Wednesday filed a damages suit against the nation’s most prestigious women’s university over its withdrawal of plans to build a campus in the region.

According to the suit filed with the Euijeongbu District Court against Ewha Womans University, the municipal government is asking the school foundation to pay it 1.4 billion won in compensation.

“The unilateral decision has let down the local residents and broken the trust between the two organizations. The local community has invested a lot in the project with the hope that the school would create a branch campus on the area,” it said.

It said the school must pay 240 million won for new soil that had been brought in for the campus site, 591 million won for the opening of the DMZ Natural History Museum, 77 million won for hosting congratulatory concerts, 105 million won for a feasibility study for a train station near the campus and 400 million won for the expansion of the water supply and sewage system to the campus site.

The university had signed an agreement with Gyeonggi Province and Paju city in October 2006 to establish a branch on a 219,000 square-meter plot at the former Camp Edward site and 70,000 square meters of adjacent land. Both sites are publicly owned.

However, the school scrapped the project last month, citing the excessively high price set by the Ministry of National Defense, the current owner of the site.

The Gyeonggi provincial and Paju municipal governments offered to pay the difference in land prices to Ewha, but the university decided to walk out on the deal. The move infuriated Paju citizens, who had hoped that the campus would boost the local economy.

Ewha Womans University is expected to receive further bills: Paju government has already requested the school return to the government the 11.2 billion won the Defense Ministry paid for the cleanup of the former U.S. military site.

A group of Paju residents said they are planning to file suits against the school foundation since the site was designated as an educational site, prohibited from any commercial use for the past five years. The designation has reportedly caused damages worth 5-6 billion won.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)