The LH brand is disappearing from the public housing supplied by the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH).

According to the information that the office of Democratic Party of Korea legislator Park Sang-hyuk, a member of the parliamentary Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, received from LH, the land ministry introduced a pilot project that applies names chosen by the residents for public housing complexes as an innovative change in public agencies last September. As of Tuesday, LH decided to erase “LH” from three out of four apartment complexes in the pilot project.

The residents of A1-1 in Byeollae, Namyangju voted on the name Byeollae Byeolheim out of fifteen options including the complex’s current name, Byeolgaram Maeul 1-1. Gwacheon Knowledge Information Town S10 will be renamed as Gwacheon Foredream, and LH Gangnam 3 will be renamed as Gangnam Eversium. Of the four complexes included in the pilot project, only Dobong Jugong Complex 1 decided to retain its original name.

The pilot project allows residents to erase the LH brand painted on the outer walls of the apartment buildings and use the new names if the residents choose to do so. The names of the apartment complexes were determined based on the residents’ choice out of four options: a name suggested by the residents, one proposed by LH, the existing complex name including LH, and the brand of the private construction company. In the case of the three complexes that opted to change their names, the new names were all proposed by LH. LH, which is the owner of the apartments, proposed names that did not display LH.

The land ministry and the housing corporation said that the reason they introduced the pilot project was to “remove the social stigma on public housing residents.” In other words, since residents were exposed to social discrimination and stigma just for living in an LH housing project, they were allowing residents to rename the complexes with names similar to those of apartment complexes sold by private companies. The government also received a string of complaints from residents and recommendations from the National Assembly to remove LH from the apartment name.

Kim Seon-ju, a professor in the Department of Real Estate Investment Management at Kyonggi University said, “There were a lot of reports that children were hurt when disparaging expressions like ‘L-geo’ (LH residents) and ‘Hu-geo’ (residents of Humansia, an LH brand) were popular among the students,” and added, “It’s hard to see this as a fundamental solution, but it is a positive measure for it can immediately weaken the stigma.”

But many people criticized that the attempt to erase LH from LH apartments would only strengthen the social stigma. They argued that LH was creating a situation where people already living in LH public housing or who wanted to live in such apartments would have to hide themselves.

Jisu, head of the Minsnail Union, said, “Securing the public nature of housing by supplying public housing at affordable prices is the reason LH exists,” and argued, “By erasing the LH brand because of discrimination and stereotypes on public housing, LH is denying the very value for which it exists, public interest.”

Choi Eun-yeong, director of the Korea Center for City and Environment Research, said it might not be good to have marked differences allowing people to clearly tell rental apartment complexes apart from complexes with apartments owned by the residents. Yet she also argued, “They are missing the point if they simply try to resolve discrimination by renaming the complexes, while neglecting the reality in which the institutional rights of the tenants are not guaranteed compared to the rights of the people who purchase the apartments.”