Signing Rate for Housing Expropriation Reaches 98.28%
By Qi Chuanbin
The unveiling ceremony of signing rate for housing expropriation of Block 138 in Hongkou was held on March 27, which unveiled the first-day signing rate of 98.28% and marked that Block 138 became Shanghai's first renovated land to meet the standard and come into force after production resumption this year.
71-year-old Ms. Liu, who lives in Zhoujiazui Road, has lived in a 17.4-square-meter house for nearly 20 years. It is the most difficult to have three generations living in the house. "It will be raining lightly inside when it is raining heavily outside. There are mice running over in the house when we are sleeping at night. It is miserable. Now we finally get the renovation project,” said Ms. Liu, who initially signed the contract and preferred money. According to her plan, Ms. Liu will first rent a house for the transition period, and then buy a commercial house for living out her life in retirement.
Block 138 ranges from Zhoushan Road in the east to Gongping Road in the west, and ranges from Zhoujiazui Road in the south to Yuezhou Road in the north, which covers an area of 22,075 square meters and involves a total of 871 resident certificates for 1,011 households with each certificate benefiting 4.2 people. Built for a long time, most of the houses in Block 138 are brick-and-wood structure below the second level, and have serious fire hazards, so the residents are looking forward to renovation for so many years. Thus, the first round of consultation achieved 100% consent rate of residents last August. Due to the outbreak however, the second round scheduled in mid-February has to be postponed.
Hongkou launched the second round of consultation on March 8 to resume the project this year, in a bid to comply with expectations of the residents and improve the living conditions and environment as soon as possible. Then, how to make efforts on both COVID-19 control and housing expropriation during the special period?
The District Land Renovation Headquarters, Jiaxing Road Sub-district Sub-headquarters and the 2nd Expropriation Office have changed the work methods, taken non-contact work measures instead, followed WeChat accounts of the residents in advance, and reached more than 98% of online contact, according to Lu Xuebin, Executive Deputy Director of the Sub-district Sub-headquarters.
Since announcing the decision on the housing expropriation on March 8, the working staff have had one-to-one talk to serve residents upon telephone, WeChat, video and other forms, increased the participation rate, and ensured the efficiency. The relevant policies have been first issued on the WeChat public account of Jiaxing Renovation. 24 articles, which center on contracted house selection concerned by the residents, evaluation of average price, compensation amount and other issues, have been published; and the residents have read the articles up to 14,929 times online.
In the process of signing, the expropriation units implement the signing method of “online first and offline reservation” upon innovation, in order to minimize the gathering of personnel.
The “online first” means to issue announcements, notification orders and other electronic materials to house-owners applying for online signing in a prior manner, before which the working staff need to verify the information of relevant documents through WeChat and video. The house-owners then can lose no time in signing contracts through online system, so as to obtain the benefits.
The “offline reservation” asks the residents who need material confirmation and contract signing on site to make an appointment via telephone first, and handles three kinds of certificates in batches every half an hour within the working hours. As for the house-owners with special difficulties, the working staff from the Expropriation Office will have talks with them in advance, and then sign contracts with them.
In addition, Jiaxing Road Sub-district insists on leading the renovation with the Party construction, and will put the Party branch on the project. Based on COVID-19 control, the Sub-district takes targeted measures in time to properly deal with the problems, works with the District Housing Expropriation Center to set up a Service Station for the Party and the Masses to provide services for residents in need, and encourages the Party members and residents to take the lead in signing contracts. Thus, 60 Party members from Block 138 all sign the contract, so do all the public officials here.
The land renovation is the greatest livelihood project and the most important development of Hongkou. According to the heads of the District Land Renovation Headquarters, COVID-19 control needs a lot of work, Hongkou maintains the efforts on land renovation. Besides, the heads will further strengthen the cooperation with municipality-level authorities to ensure that Hongkou completes the target to renovate 6,000 households this year.