LAND TROUBLES
Beijing acts on forced home demolitions
Local governments must heed 'reasonable demands' of residents
BEIJING: China's Cabinet has issued an urgent notice to local governments, urging them to set up and implement new compensation standards for land acquisition before July.
The move follows a string of violent confrontations triggered by forced evictions, some resulting in the deaths of protesting residents.
Local governments will be required to pay heed to 'reasonable' demands of people whose homes are to be pulled down, the official Xinhua news agency's Outlook magazine reported on Monday.
Officials responsible for 'vicious incidents' caused by demolitions or land requisition will face penalties, the document from the State Council, or Chinese Cabinet, said.
According to the document, local governments that have already issued compensation standards for home demolition should strictly follow the rules. Those which have yet to issue the standards should do so by the end of next month. If the existing compensation standards are considered low, local governments are required to update the rules as soon as possible.
The ministries of land and resources and supervision on Tuesday published a list of 16 city governments that had occupied 40,666ha of land without obtaining proper certification, the Shanghai Daily reported yesterday.
A total of 1,932 people have been referred to prosecutors over such matters.
Illegal demolitions have made headlines frequently. In the latest case, the local government of a poverty-stricken county in north China's Hebei province pulled down houses of more than 1,000 families to accomplish what it called a 'county renovation plan', state broadcaster CCTV said on Monday.
Officials at the Guangping county, in a bid to win a good appraisal from the higher authorities, drafted the renovation plan early this year, including removing old houses, building 10 major streets, increasing green areas by one million sq m, and constructing six scenic spots.
The Guangping government received 130 million yuan (S$27 million) in revenue, while the cost of the renovation plan is estimated at two billion yuan, CCTV said.
Houses spread over more than 330,000 sq m, belonging to 1,000 urban and rural households, were demolished in 10 days in late March. No compensation contracts for land requisition or any agreements for resettlement were signed.
Local residents said only some of them had received demolition notices from the government, while others did not receive any notice or document until their houses were torn down, CCTV reported.
Most of the people received compensations of 300 to 400 yuan per sq m for their properties, when the average price for local residential housing has reached 1,500 yuan per sq m.
Ms Li Yunde, a local farmer, said the county government tore down her five-room house and confiscated her 2,000 sq m farmland.
Compensated with only 89,000 yuan, Ms Li and her husband are living in a 10 sq m tent on the ruins of their home. She said the money was not enough for buying another house.
Mr Wang Weiyu, an official with the county government, told CCTV that the county will build several hundred apartments for relocation purposes, and the price will not surpass 900 yuan per sq m. But it is not known when construction will start.
CHINA DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
Farmer Xiang Wenjiang in front of his house amid newly constructed residential buildings in Gushi, Henan province, in March. The local authorities have tried to evict him, but he is refusing to move until he is properly compensated. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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