news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

when a high-income industrial village

encountering a new era of demolition with lowered standards

the thorny contradiction can be imagined

the kanglu area in haizhu district, known as the "most expensive old-town renovation project in guangzhou", has officially entered the construction stage.

kangle bridge is one of the landmarks of kangle village. a narrow road to the west along the bridge divides two very different spaces. on august 19, bulldozers were working in a large fenced-off open space on the south side. on the other side, a demolition banner with the words "farewell to the narrow alley handshake building" was hung on the building. the low houses in the garment village were connected together, and daily operations were not disturbed: at 5 pm, many electric bicycles carrying cloth filed out of the sun yat-sen university cloth market and drove to the garment factory. there were also many day workers waiting on the street and the bridge, hoping to find the last job opportunity before the end of the day.

kanglu district, consisting of two urban villages, kangle and lujiang, is located in haizhu district, the core area of ​​guangzhou, with the city's central axis running through it. because the renovation cost exceeds 30 billion yuan, it is known as the "most expensive old renovation" in guangzhou. the kanglu district will undergo urban village renovation. as early as 2011, the villagers' representatives voted to decide. the news has been circulating in the village for many years, but it was not until 2023 that the project progress was accelerated: the project was first demolished at the end of that year, and officially broke ground on july 24 this year.

the renovation of guangzhou's urban villages began in 2009. after more than ten years of urban renewal, li yujia, chief researcher of the housing policy research center of the guangdong provincial institute of urban and rural planning, bluntly stated that most of the urban village renovation projects with stable funding and fewer historical problems have been promoted in the early stages, and the remaining ones are "basically hard nuts to crack."

looking beyond this place, the renovation of urban villages in guangzhou and even the whole country is entering a new stage, and the era of getting rich quickly through demolition is gradually fading away.

on april 23, the last building of the f37 plot in kanglu district collapsed. photo/visual china

"getting rich overnight" becomes history

in 2020, qin mian, a native of jiangxi province, invested about 1 million yuan to open a garment factory in lujiang village. although he heard about the demolition plan of the kanglu area in 2018, the project has never been truly advanced.

in 2023, the transformation of the urban village in kanglu district was accelerated. the two first construction plots had 83,200 square meters of houses, 49 low-rise buildings, and 379 tenants. the rent clearance and demolition began at the end of 2023. qin mian knew a boss who spent more than 400,000 yuan to rent a factory, and received a demolition notice only one month later. but in an interview with china newsweek on august 20, qin mian was not worried about it. "it won't be demolished in my place in three years. my factory is next to the road, and the row behind it is all private houses of villagers. it will be troublesome to demolish them."

the difficulty in reaching a consensus on compensation for demolition has always been a thorny issue in the transformation of urban villages. at the beginning of the kanglu district project, people speculated that this would be the "next liede or yangji village" and that the villagers would become rich overnight after the demolition.

jiang hao is the founding dean of guangzhou modern urban renewal industry development center (hereinafter referred to as "grid industrial development center"), and he and his team participated in the planning of the urban renewal unit planning of kanglu district. he told china news weekly that compared with the previous standards, the current demolition compensation standards have changed significantly, which will be a new challenge for the promotion of the kanglu district renovation project.

on may 17 this year, the draft of the demolition, resettlement and compensation plan for the fenghe (kangle village and lujiang village) urban village renovation project (hereinafter referred to as the "kanglu area renovation project") was made public for soliciting opinions.

the draft for soliciting opinions states that there are two types of compensation: reconstruction and resettlement and monetary compensation for abandoned property. it also distinguishes between villagers and non-villagers who have local housing ownership rights. in the kanglu area, non-villagers have built nearly 2,000 houses, accounting for 45% of the total number of residential houses. their residential area is even nearly 130,000 square meters more than that of villagers.

if the house has a property certificate, local villagers will be compensated according to the building area or 3.5 floors listed in the certificate, and non-local villagers will be compensated for a maximum of 280 square meters of rebuilt houses. for the excess, 40% of the area will be compensated as an apartment with property rights, and 60% will only be compensated in cash at 1,500 yuan/square meter. for houses built before 2010 without property certificates, villagers will be compensated for 3.5 floors, and non-villagers will receive an apartment without property rights, with a 40-year right of use and a building area of ​​no more than 280 square meters. if the unlicensed house was built in 2010, neither villagers nor non-villagers will be rebuilt and resettled, and only monetary compensation will be given. if you choose to abandon the property, the compensation standard for the rebuilt residential area is 12,500 yuan/square meter, and the compensation standard for the rebuilt commercial property area is 6,000 yuan/square meter.

some local villagers and non-villagers are not satisfied with the plan. for the villagers, some old renovation projects in guangzhou in the past used 4 floors as the reconstruction compensation area. although monetary compensation for abandoned property is not the first choice of many people, people intuitively feel the gap from this point. in contrast, the demolition and compensation plan for lirendong village in panyu was made public in 2020. it mentioned that in terms of monetary compensation, the area part that belongs to the "demolition one and compensation one" will be compensated at the rate of 20,000 yuan per square meter, which has caused heated discussions.

a local non-villager did the math for the media: the building area is 656 square meters, and according to the standard, he can move back to a 280-square-meter house, a 150-square-meter apartment, and about 340,000 yuan in monetary compensation. if he uses the abandoned property as monetary compensation to buy a house in the surrounding area, the more than 4.7 million yuan in compensation he received can only pay 30% to 40% of the down payment. a coordinator of the urban village renovation project admitted in an interview with the media that "the era of getting rich overnight through urban village renovation is over."

a villager from kangle village told china newsweek that given the location of the kanglu area in the center of guangzhou, he used to have a stable income from rent, but he was worried that he would have nothing after the demolition, so he hoped for a higher compensation plan.

on april 12, a building in kanglu district was enclosed and waiting to be demolished. photo/visual china

the contradiction is more difficult

the contradiction of demolition compensation is even more difficult in industrial villages like kanglu.

li yujia introduced that, thanks to the "three-in-one" policy, the industrial village model has become common in guangzhou's urban villages. villagers and village collectives have enjoyed the dividends of industrial development in the past 30 years, with high incomes. they are well aware of the huge value of land, and their expectations for demolition compensation have also increased accordingly.

the two villages of kangle and lujiang cover an area of ​​about 1 square kilometer, equivalent to the size of about 140 standard football fields. they are home to nearly 20,000 garment factories, auxiliary material factories, etc., and more than 100,000 people live, eat and travel here.

the urban village is dirty, crowded, dotted with factories of all sizes, and the streets are like a maze. a garment factory owner told a joke: a day-paid worker went downstairs to buy water, but never came back, and didn't even ask for his salary, because he got lost.

many alleys can only accommodate 1-2 people walking side by side, the air conditioner compressors on the upper floors are dripping, the roads without sunlight are always damp and emitting the odor of sewers. most of the original residents have moved out of the urban villages, and many have expanded their houses to four or five floors, and some even to eight or nine floors, and make a living by collecting rent.

a single room of 8-9 square meters, with a slightly better decoration, has a monthly rent of about 1,500 yuan - the local single room housing price ranges from 400 to 1,600 yuan. there are 8 such houses on each floor. assuming there are 4 floors, the landlord's annual rental income exceeds 600,000 yuan.

many private houses in the village are sublet through second or third landlords, but the original residents can also earn considerable income. southern metropolis daily reported that a poster at the construction site of the urban village renovation project in kanglu district read: the average monthly rent for residential houses in kanglu district is 80-100 yuan/square meter, and the average monthly rent for commercial properties is 100-200 yuan/square meter. the average annual dividend per share of the village community is about 213,000 yuan. in addition, the villagers can also get a generous rent from renting out their personal houses. the annual income of some villagers from renting out their houses can reach 400,000-700,000 yuan, and the annual income can reach 1 million yuan.

when a high-income industrial village encounters the new era of demolition with lowered standards, one can imagine how difficult it becomes.

in fact, from february to june this year, the fenghe economic association, where kangle and lujiang are located, solicited opinions from villagers three times on the resettlement compensation plan for the area. however, as of the end of august, two months after the draft was published, there has been no new progress.

the two plots currently under construction are village collective properties with less resistance to demolition. there are a total of 9 plots in the first phase of renovation, including 8 reconstruction plots and 1 financing plot. according to public information, the renovation of kanglu district is divided into 59 unit plots, including 49 reconstruction plots and 10 financing plots. it will be implemented in four phases in accordance with the principle of "reconstruction first, financing later, collective first, private later", with one plot demolished, one plot built, and one plot vacated.

kanglu district is located in the center of guangzhou. every inch of land is worth a lot of money, and rent is one of the main sources of income for villagers. photo by yang zhijie, our reporter

caught between old and new paradigms

the villagers actually do not oppose the transformation.

the renovation of the urban village in the kanglu area can be traced back to 2011, when the representatives of the villagers of the two villages voted to promote the renovation of the "urban village" based on the natural village and carried out preliminary work such as selecting potential cooperative enterprises. in 2018, the intention to renovate the entire village was approved, with 3,305 shareholders in the two villages and an approval rate of 97.19%. in 2021, hopson development officially became the cooperative enterprise for the renovation of kangle village and lujiang village.

the project made substantial progress in 2023. in june of that year, haizhu district established the kanglu district comprehensive renovation and upgrading command, divided the kanglu district into 13 grids, and appointed 13 district leaders as grid leaders, and mobilized cadres from the entire district to promote the renovation work. at the end of the same year, the demolition of houses was officially launched. in may of this year, the implementation plan of the renovation project was approved. in june, the planning and construction permits required for the construction project were also approved. on july 24, the construction of the two plots officially started.

this urban village renovation project adopts a comprehensive renovation method, with fenghe economic union of fengyang street, haizhu district, guangzhou as the main body of the renovation, and the renovation is carried out in a cooperative renovation mode. hopson development holdings limited is responsible for the specific implementation work. according to relevant plans, the project is planned to be carried out in four phases and is expected to take ten years.

however, over the past decade, the overall environment for urban village renovation in guangzhou and even across the country has undergone tremendous changes. li yujia mentioned that the last round of urban village renovation was concentrated from 2016 to 2019, and most mainland cities included urban village renovation in shantytown renovation, but many cities in the pearl river delta, including guangzhou, still used the "three old" renovation model.

the original "three old" transformation model has a distinct market-oriented color. although this model has achieved results to a certain extent, it has also brought "side effects". li yujia once analyzed that due to excessive reliance on developers to lead demolition negotiations, high compensation for "nail households" has resulted in rising demolition costs and difficulties in implementing the government-set demolition standards. in order to solve the problem of capital balance, developers often exceed the plot ratio and planning indicators, and public facilities are not in place. in the end, the transformation of urban villages has become a project dominated by real estate companies.

since 2023, the country has repeatedly emphasized the need to continue to promote the transformation of urban villages in megacities. this year, guangzhou launched the "special plan for urban renewal in guangzhou (2021-2035)" and the "special plan for urban village transformation in guangzhou (2021-2035)", entering a new round of urban village transformation, emphasizing government leadership, encouraging state-owned enterprises to participate, and gradually moving towards the "legal expropriation and net land transfer" model, and combining it with industrial transformation and upgrading.

at the same time, starting from may 1 this year, the "guangzhou urban village renovation regulations" was officially implemented. this is the first local regulation in the country specifically aimed at urban village renovation.

however, according to li xiaojiang, former president of the china academy of urban planning and design and a national engineering survey and design master, in the last round of urban village renovation, the demolition compensation mechanism could be promoted, provided that there was sufficient market demand for real estate at that time. villagers received high demolition compensation, and even if real estate developers spent a lot of money, they could demolish one and build two and three, and the government could also earn land finance. the problem now is that the real estate industry is in a deep adjustment cycle, and this closed loop is no longer feasible. "after the demolition, who will take over and who will build?"

the renovation of the urban village in kanglu district was planned early, and continued the past "three old" renovation model. however, two days before the draft for soliciting opinions on its demolition compensation was made public, on may 15, the "implementation measures for the renovation of old villages, old factories and old towns in guangzhou" was officially implemented, which also clearly regulated each link of the "three old" renovation model.

the kanglu area is therefore caught between the old and new models of urban village reconstruction. li yujia told china newsweek that the reconstruction task assigned to the kanglu area is very heavy, and the requirements for affordable housing and floor area ratio are not as high as the new model, but the government also hopes to provide space for the city to develop, help industrial transformation and upgrading, provide a certain amount of housing for foreign populations, and achieve financial balance for real estate companies. "under multiple goals, the project is relatively slow to land."

in march and april this year, li yujia went to kanglu district for research and attended relevant local seminars. he mentioned to china news weekly that in the period of real estate downturn, developers are particularly concerned about how to maintain a balance of funds. the longer the project is delayed, the greater the pressure on developers. for this reason, haizhu district and the street office where kanglu district is located are trying to persuade the village collectives and villagers to reduce the cost of demolition.

in jiang hao's view, compared with the previous round of urban village renovation, the reduction of demolition compensation standards is a return to rationality. in the past, developers often did not communicate these differences with villagers in pursuit of higher profits. but now, the government needs to explain and emphasize this to the village collective and villagers.

several experts who have been in contact with the project mentioned that it would take time to lower villagers’ expectations for demolition compensation and that it would be difficult to achieve this solely through government promotion. instead, it would require market education and a real perception that housing prices are falling.

in fact, the locals also realize that the original industrial environment needs to be upgraded and transformed, but their demand is to have income and to rent out houses or collective properties. the government should consider the issue from the standpoint of the villagers and the village collective and find a balance.

in li xiaojiang's opinion, the kanglu area adopts the "three old" renovation model, which does not require the mandatory sale of net land, and has played a "buffer" role to a certain extent, meaning that all houses here do not need to be demolished in advance.

for example, the first two plots of land to be built can become a test field, and the areas to be updated later can summarize the experience on this basis. "for example, some plots of land can be demolished and rebuilt on a large scale, while other places may have some organic updates such as improving the infrastructure."

"large-scale demolition and reconstruction is not the only solution. it may even be the most expensive solution, and the risks are very high." in his view, the transformation of the urban villages in kanglu area is essentially an issue of economic development. we must respect market laws and explore comprehensive solutions to reduce risks in urban villages, safeguard the legitimate interests of villagers, ensure the effective operation of enterprises, and ensure that new residents can live and work in peace and contentment.

(to protect the privacy of the interviewee, qin mian is a pseudonym.)

reporter: yang zhijie

editor: min jie

operations editor: ma xiaoyi