All-round participation is key to better future
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A man set himself on fire on the outskirts of Beijing just a month after a woman immolated herself in Chengdu in protest against the forcible demolition of their houses.
The twin tragedies have raised a heated public debate on the constitutionality of some articles in the Urban House Demolition and Relocation Management Regulation.
We can sympathize with residents being forced to move out of their homes, condemn the demolishers for their brutality and even criticize the regulation for being against the grain of the Constitution. But none of these will lead us anywhere, for the problem lies elsewhere. Since demolition is the last step of a city's planning process, decided by local governments and real estate developers, we have to look at the early stages of the decision-making process for the seeds of demolition-related tragedies.
The immediate reason why forcible razing of houses has become common across the country is that real estate developers can obtain demolition permits easily if they can "benefit" local governments.
In many cases, residents and homeowners don't even know that their houses would be expropriated till a local government issues a relocation deadline notice. This rules out the involvement of residents in the decision-making process and enables local governments and developers to set the resettlement compensation amounts - the lower, the better - in advance. Local governments and developers take this recourse to make the maximum profit from the transfer of land use rights.
No wonder, most residents whose houses are to be razed are caught by surprise both by the expropriation notice and the paltry compensation they are awarded, and hence refuse to vacate the premises. Given this situation, how can forcible demolitions or "nail households" be avoided? "Nail households" are buildings or houses whose occupiers refuse to vacate despite a demolition notice and even after structures around them have been razed.
Therefore, the root of forced demolitions and the ensuing tragedies is not the demolition regulation itself, but a city's planning and expropriation process. As long as residents are excluded from the decision-making process, and local government and developers regard razing buildings as a "profit-making business", demolitions cannot be a civilized act, no matter how much we amend related regulations.
To change this situation, we have to first ensure that local governments and real estate developers cannot make money, or at least easy money, through demolitions. This will reduce their enthusiasm for demolitions. Some local government leaders still believe demolition is equal to development and link local GDP growth to their political achievements and career paths. As a result, they never realize that "no demolition" could actually make local people's life better.
But how can expropriation be made non-profitable? Expropriation is an act of eminent domain. According to constitutions of most countries, any act of eminent domain has to be accompanied by "just compensation", that is, compensation should be in accordance with the property's "fair market value". Thus, if local governments and realty developers cannot pay proper compensation to a resident, they have no right to, forcibly or otherwise, demolish his/her house.
The lack of constitutional or legal guarantee for "just compensation" is a loophole in the country's real property expropriation system. True, the amendment to the Constitution in 2004 stipulates that acts of eminent domain can be committed only if compensation is paid. But it does not specify that the "compensation" should be "just".
What's more, the Real Right Law, enacted in 2007, did not make any progress on compensation standards. So to ensure that tragedies like the ones in Chengdu and Beijing do not recur a "just compensation" clause has to be enshrined in the Constitution and the demolition-related laws and regulations.
But will local governments and real estate developers implement such clauses? Obviously not, for it would block one of the main sources of their income.
Homeowners and residents must be involved in the decision-making process because the cost of expropriating a building is directly related to the compensation paid to them. If residents don't take part in the decision-making process, as is the case now, demolition becomes like insider trading between local governments and developers and could lead to corruption and tragedy. And only if the governments and developers seek tenants' opinions before deciding to requisition a building can demolitions be carried out peacefully.
But what happens if residents, on the hand, and local governments and developers, on the other, have a dispute even after constitutional and legal guarantees come into existence and the former do participate in decision-making process? In such a situation we would need a neutral third party to intervene and decide the case.
Since "fair market value" can be estimated objectively, once a dispute arises or even before that, the two sides should ask a neutral property assessment authority to fix the compensation. If this is done then not only should local governments and developers pay the amount, but also the residents have to accept it. Ensuring resident participation before the process is the key to prevent housing demolition tragedies.
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