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Chongqing builds public rental housing for 2 million poor
By Mou Xu and Xu Xuzhong |
February 18, 2011, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AS Chongqing City's ambitious public rental housing project began accepting applications this week, lower income people may finally be free from the distress, common among their counterparts elsewhere, over dauntingly high housing prices.
The project, which broke ground last year, calls for 40 million square meters of apartment buildings in three years to house two million low- and middle- income people who are over age 18 and live in the urban center. But they cannot be homeowners or their homes must be extremely small.
That would mean one-third of the population in Chongqing's urban center may be covered by public rental housing. Rent will be 40 percent lower than that of comparable commercial housing. Chongqing is the first major Chinese city to begin a public housing project on such a large scale.
Chongqing's vice mayor Ling Yueming announced last week at a press conference that one-tenth of the total public rental housing will be allocated to eligible applicants through a lottery on March 2.
For Tong Xiaoqiong, 61, who became Chongqing's first certified eligible applicant last Saturday, winning the lottery would be a huge relief.
A retired worker from a bankrupt state-owned factory, Tong had lost her husband and their only two children to illness or accidents by 2005, the year she sold her only apartment to pay medical bills.
Crumbling
Since then, she has been living alone in shabby rented apartments and has moved four times when she could not afford rent increases.
Now she lives in a one-bedroom apartment where plaster dust crumbles from the ceilings. Her minimal pension cannot pay for a decent rented apartment, like those in the new housing project. Purchase is unthinkable.
Housing used to be a social benefit and was provided at no cost by the government in cities before market reform of the housing system in 1998.
Since the government stopped providing free urban housing, real estate companies have sprung up and the property market boomed.
Housing prices have been skyrocketing over the past decade and most urbanites who are less well off kiss dreams of home ownership good-bye.
Buying an apartment is unthinkable for Gao Jing. Gao, a 29-year-old migrant worker living in Chongqing's urban center for 13 years.
"A rented home will always be a rented home. You can be kicked out at any time. Since I have a baby now, my longing for a home of my own is much stronger, even if it's just a one-bedroom apartment," said Gao who was one of thousands seeking information on the new public housing.
The Chongqing project allows tenants to buy rented apartments after five years, at a price based on the apartment's construction cost.
Although those purchase prices have not been announced, they will certainly be lower than prices of commercial housing, because public rental housing is exempt from land use fees and other taxes. These costs represent a large part of housing prices in China.
Mortgage slave
Buying a home with a mortgage is common, as is the phrase "mortgage slave," referring to millions spend much of their income on mortgage payments.
Li Min, a fresh local graduate, said he was pinning his hopes on public rental housing so he would not become a mortgage slave.
"I want to rent so I can buy it after five years. There's no way I can buy a commercial apartment," he said, adding that one square meter of commercial apartment spaces costs more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,515). Lis's monthly income is 1,600 yuan (around US$240).
The Chongqing government says the city now has a "dual system" of housing, in which low-income people can live in government-built public housing while others can buy commercial housing. Tian Fenglun, an economist with Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences, said the dual system tackled the deep-rooted problems in housing reform and was a major move to improve the housing supply system.
Last year the central government announced its biggest plan to build 10 million units of rental and other types of public housing in 2011.
Chongqing's public rental housing project has been endorsed by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and senior leader Li Changchun, who praised the project on separate inspection tours last year.
The project, which broke ground last year, calls for 40 million square meters of apartment buildings in three years to house two million low- and middle- income people who are over age 18 and live in the urban center. But they cannot be homeowners or their homes must be extremely small.
That would mean one-third of the population in Chongqing's urban center may be covered by public rental housing. Rent will be 40 percent lower than that of comparable commercial housing. Chongqing is the first major Chinese city to begin a public housing project on such a large scale.
Chongqing's vice mayor Ling Yueming announced last week at a press conference that one-tenth of the total public rental housing will be allocated to eligible applicants through a lottery on March 2.
For Tong Xiaoqiong, 61, who became Chongqing's first certified eligible applicant last Saturday, winning the lottery would be a huge relief.
A retired worker from a bankrupt state-owned factory, Tong had lost her husband and their only two children to illness or accidents by 2005, the year she sold her only apartment to pay medical bills.
Crumbling
Since then, she has been living alone in shabby rented apartments and has moved four times when she could not afford rent increases.
Now she lives in a one-bedroom apartment where plaster dust crumbles from the ceilings. Her minimal pension cannot pay for a decent rented apartment, like those in the new housing project. Purchase is unthinkable.
Housing used to be a social benefit and was provided at no cost by the government in cities before market reform of the housing system in 1998.
Since the government stopped providing free urban housing, real estate companies have sprung up and the property market boomed.
Housing prices have been skyrocketing over the past decade and most urbanites who are less well off kiss dreams of home ownership good-bye.
Buying an apartment is unthinkable for Gao Jing. Gao, a 29-year-old migrant worker living in Chongqing's urban center for 13 years.
"A rented home will always be a rented home. You can be kicked out at any time. Since I have a baby now, my longing for a home of my own is much stronger, even if it's just a one-bedroom apartment," said Gao who was one of thousands seeking information on the new public housing.
The Chongqing project allows tenants to buy rented apartments after five years, at a price based on the apartment's construction cost.
Although those purchase prices have not been announced, they will certainly be lower than prices of commercial housing, because public rental housing is exempt from land use fees and other taxes. These costs represent a large part of housing prices in China.
Mortgage slave
Buying a home with a mortgage is common, as is the phrase "mortgage slave," referring to millions spend much of their income on mortgage payments.
Li Min, a fresh local graduate, said he was pinning his hopes on public rental housing so he would not become a mortgage slave.
"I want to rent so I can buy it after five years. There's no way I can buy a commercial apartment," he said, adding that one square meter of commercial apartment spaces costs more than 10,000 yuan (US$1,515). Lis's monthly income is 1,600 yuan (around US$240).
The Chongqing government says the city now has a "dual system" of housing, in which low-income people can live in government-built public housing while others can buy commercial housing. Tian Fenglun, an economist with Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences, said the dual system tackled the deep-rooted problems in housing reform and was a major move to improve the housing supply system.
Last year the central government announced its biggest plan to build 10 million units of rental and other types of public housing in 2011.
Chongqing's public rental housing project has been endorsed by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and senior leader Li Changchun, who praised the project on separate inspection tours last year.
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