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Affordable home schemes tarred by rip-offs
By Ni Tao |
June 2, 2011, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ALL happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
The enduring truth of Leo Tolstoy's opening sentence of his novel "Anna Karenina" has withstood the test of time. Until recently.
If we invoke Tolstoy to describe the housing market in China, the first part of his philosophical words still holds, while the second part may no longer apply.
Housing has arguably been the biggest source of popular miseries in urban China, where steep home prices have made home ownership a distant hope for poor households.
So whenever the government steps in to help, its bona fides will garner a tide of gratitude.
Last weekend, local Dragon TV broadcast a news item that played up this gratitude. Several residents who had lived in cramped houses were relocated in a new affordable suburban housing complex. All beamed broadly as they praised the government for its largesse.
They are among the first batch of beneficiaries of the city's stepped-up efforts to construct more affordable residential communities. Shanghai plans to boost the coverage of its government-subsidized housing by 5 million units in the next five years.
Nationwide, the number of affordable homes will jump to 36 million under the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), with 10 million scheduled for completion this year.
Despite the good will move, there is vast disagreement in the punditocracy over the "proper" scope of the scheme, which will lift the city's share of social housing to 20 percent.
Contrast
As Professor Zheng Yongnian points out in today's lead opinion article, some scholars consider the 20 percent rate too ambitious, while others, including Zheng himself, regard it as woefully conservative.
Indeed, policy makers might be shamed by the contrast between China's vaunted social housing project and Singapore's achievement - 80 percent of its housing is subsidized by the government.
While I admire the Singa-porean government for its commitment to Mencius' ideal that "everyone has his right of abode," we should be mindful of the preconditions that enabled it to accomplish this feat.
Deng Yongheng, director of the Institute of Real Estate Studies at the National University of Singapore, told a local forum recently that Singapore's ex-Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew designated improvement of housing conditions as a social plan rather than a "pillar industry," as real estate is treated here.
Lee's government generously subsidized immigrants' rents and mortgages, thereby retaining the talents that propelled Singapore to its current splendor.
Through holding stakes in the property market instead of employing an interventionist approach, the Singaporean state indirectly controls home prices and manages to maintain social harmony.
It's obvious from Singapore's experience that to succeed in the social housing initiative, government regulations are crucial.
Manipulations
That's why the polemics in China over the appropriate rate of subsidized housing - whether it's 20 percent, 40 percent or 60 percent - are largely irrelevant.
Recent scandals involving social housing have shown that without government oversight, a laudable program can be easily manipulated for the selfish interests of individuals and government agencies.
That many affordable homes were built using inferior materials and following a lax construction code is no longer news. The sensation has been replaced by more outrageous revelations that the very purveyors of no-frills apartments sometimes steal from the national funds earmarked for this purpose.
In a notorious case, Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province, received 16 million yuan (US$2.35 million) in 2009 from the provincial and central governments to fund construction of 600 low-rent apartments. But it was later revealed that the developer entrusted with the job had pocketed most of the money and only built 72 apartments.
Elsewhere in China, exposes of public affordable housing lotteries being rigged in favor of civil servants are a constant reminder that the sector is badly in need of regulation.
At a time when popular complaints of "a wealthy state but a poor citizenry" are amplified by these transgressions, the government would do well to restrain a few voracious elements within its ranks and do its job as a watchdog, before it sets sights on more aggressive targets.
The enduring truth of Leo Tolstoy's opening sentence of his novel "Anna Karenina" has withstood the test of time. Until recently.
If we invoke Tolstoy to describe the housing market in China, the first part of his philosophical words still holds, while the second part may no longer apply.
Housing has arguably been the biggest source of popular miseries in urban China, where steep home prices have made home ownership a distant hope for poor households.
So whenever the government steps in to help, its bona fides will garner a tide of gratitude.
Last weekend, local Dragon TV broadcast a news item that played up this gratitude. Several residents who had lived in cramped houses were relocated in a new affordable suburban housing complex. All beamed broadly as they praised the government for its largesse.
They are among the first batch of beneficiaries of the city's stepped-up efforts to construct more affordable residential communities. Shanghai plans to boost the coverage of its government-subsidized housing by 5 million units in the next five years.
Nationwide, the number of affordable homes will jump to 36 million under the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), with 10 million scheduled for completion this year.
Despite the good will move, there is vast disagreement in the punditocracy over the "proper" scope of the scheme, which will lift the city's share of social housing to 20 percent.
Contrast
As Professor Zheng Yongnian points out in today's lead opinion article, some scholars consider the 20 percent rate too ambitious, while others, including Zheng himself, regard it as woefully conservative.
Indeed, policy makers might be shamed by the contrast between China's vaunted social housing project and Singapore's achievement - 80 percent of its housing is subsidized by the government.
While I admire the Singa-porean government for its commitment to Mencius' ideal that "everyone has his right of abode," we should be mindful of the preconditions that enabled it to accomplish this feat.
Deng Yongheng, director of the Institute of Real Estate Studies at the National University of Singapore, told a local forum recently that Singapore's ex-Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew designated improvement of housing conditions as a social plan rather than a "pillar industry," as real estate is treated here.
Lee's government generously subsidized immigrants' rents and mortgages, thereby retaining the talents that propelled Singapore to its current splendor.
Through holding stakes in the property market instead of employing an interventionist approach, the Singaporean state indirectly controls home prices and manages to maintain social harmony.
It's obvious from Singapore's experience that to succeed in the social housing initiative, government regulations are crucial.
Manipulations
That's why the polemics in China over the appropriate rate of subsidized housing - whether it's 20 percent, 40 percent or 60 percent - are largely irrelevant.
Recent scandals involving social housing have shown that without government oversight, a laudable program can be easily manipulated for the selfish interests of individuals and government agencies.
That many affordable homes were built using inferior materials and following a lax construction code is no longer news. The sensation has been replaced by more outrageous revelations that the very purveyors of no-frills apartments sometimes steal from the national funds earmarked for this purpose.
In a notorious case, Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province, received 16 million yuan (US$2.35 million) in 2009 from the provincial and central governments to fund construction of 600 low-rent apartments. But it was later revealed that the developer entrusted with the job had pocketed most of the money and only built 72 apartments.
Elsewhere in China, exposes of public affordable housing lotteries being rigged in favor of civil servants are a constant reminder that the sector is badly in need of regulation.
At a time when popular complaints of "a wealthy state but a poor citizenry" are amplified by these transgressions, the government would do well to restrain a few voracious elements within its ranks and do its job as a watchdog, before it sets sights on more aggressive targets.
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