The sun room on the top floor of the city, the transformation of commercial housing ventilation shafts into rooms, the "one household with multiple houses" in rural areas, and the private occupation of farmland to build houses and factories … Today, illegal construction still exists in various forms in urban and rural corners of China. Although urban managers continue to rectify and reform, the "stock burden" left over from history and the repeated illegal construction have made demolition and violation a chronic disease in grassroots governance.
Looking back on 2019, from Hebei to Guangdong, from Zhejiang to Guizhou, demolition operations were launched in many places across the country and achieved certain results. However, in this protracted war of grass-roots governance, grass-roots people are clamoring for wider social cognition and participation.
Continuous rectification is still "large in quantity and wide in scope"
Many people in the industry mentioned that the frequent and long-standing problem of illegal construction is essentially the product of the difficulty in regulating and guiding the various construction needs of the people in the transition period in China’s grass-roots land management capacity, especially the unreasonable impulse of some farmers and urban residents to build houses for profit or illegally in interest-intensive areas.
Zhao Naiyu painted
In Guangzhou, a famous local scenic spot, Baiyun Mountain, has been illegally built for more than 30 years. With the efforts of many parties, it became history in 2019 and was successfully restored to green. The person in charge of the street community where the "Big Bowl" is located said that it is hard to imagine that in an area of less than 500 square meters, there were 18 illegal buildings with four or five floors, and more than 500 people lived in it at the peak.
Guo Jingxi, director of the Supervision Department of Guangzhou Urban Management and Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau, said that as early as 20 years ago, the planning department at that time issued a notice of demolition, and the court’s enforcement was not completed. Due to the absence of major safety accidents, the local authorities have not taken forced demolition measures without better resettlement methods.
In fact, the house is built halfway up the mountain, and geological disasters are prone to occur here when the rainy season comes. The relevant person in charge of the street office said that around 2013, the area where the "big bowl" was located was identified as a geological disaster point. It was not until a few days of heavy rain in 2018 that the problems here once again entered the official vision.
In 2018, Guangdong was attacked by typhoon Mangosteen. Neighboring residents described that when the typhoon crossed the border, they really felt what was "stormy". The "big alms bowl" at the geological disaster point is far less secure than the surrounding houses, and the risk is greater.
In order to ensure safety, the street took three days to evacuate the residents safely. However, after the typhoon, many people returned to live. The passage of the typhoon made some residents realize that there was a certain risk in continuing to live in the "big alms bowl". Taking this as an opportunity, the street decided to dismantle this "time bomb".
Beginning in March 2019, Guangzhou launched a special campaign to demolish illegal buildings around Baiyun Mountain Scenic Area, which solved the pain points of urban demolition through multi-department cooperation, and also brought opportunities to solve the hidden danger of "big bowl". First, the community staff checked the identity of all 408 households one by one and handled them separately. After 12 rounds of communication and negotiation, in June 2019, more than 400 households in the "Big Bowl" all moved out and achieved zero complaints.
The demolition of the "Big Bowl" became a landmark event in Guangzhou to control illegal construction. Driven and influenced by it, the urban management department of Guangzhou completed the annual demolition target of 45 million square meters in November of that year, but it should not be ignored that there are still hundreds of millions of square meters of illegal construction in Guangzhou, and the demolition work still has a long way to go.
The same thing happened in many cities. In Handan, Hebei Province, more than 15 million square meters of illegal buildings have been demolished in the past three years, and the illegal buildings formed in decades have been thoroughly cleaned up. In Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, according to the survey data of local illegal construction in early 2019, since 2013, the local area has demolished 206 million square meters of illegal buildings, with a total construction area of 39.27 million square meters.
Wang Xiangyang, Ph.D., School of Politics and Public Administration, Wuhan University, told the Economic Information Daily that the problem of illegal construction is mainly reflected in the problems of small property houses, building new houses without demolishing the old ones, exceeding the standard area, and occupying cultivated land indiscriminately to build houses. The problem of small property houses is mainly concentrated in rural areas in economically developed areas such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, while building new houses without demolishing the old ones, exceeding the standard area and occupying cultivated land indiscriminately to build houses are more common in the vast traditional agricultural areas in the central and western regions.
From the direct consequences, the problem of illegal construction hinders the optimal layout of urban space and the organization and implementation of urban planning, and infrastructure and public welfare projects such as roads, parks and green spaces cannot be implemented. At the same time, it is easy to cause security risks, the planning and design level of illegal buildings is low, and the construction quality is poor. In particular, some illegal buildings destroy the original structure of houses and occupy fire exits, which not only has the risk of building collapse, but also seriously affects escape and rescue in the event of fire safety accidents.
Grass-roots demolition faces multiple challenges.
In the eyes of many grassroots people, the historical illegal construction that has been completed, despite the great opinions of the masses, involves various reasons, and it is difficult to satisfy multiple demands at the same time. In the absence of a better solution and an effective way to deal with it, demolition, as a terminal treatment link, faces many challenges, reflecting some common phenomena of grassroots social governance.
The reporter’s investigation found that in some places, the "get on the bus first, then make up the ticket" type of public facilities is generally illegal. In Hebei, some grassroots cadres reported that some public infrastructure construction such as sewage treatment plants, roads, gas storage stations and garbage transfer stations illegally occupied more land. Some projects are eager to get on the horse and have not gone through the land formalities, resulting in "getting on the bus first and making up the ticket later". Only in some road projects in Hebei Province, there are illegal land occupation problems to varying degrees, and even some roads have been open to traffic for one or two years, and the land occupation procedures have not been completed.
There are also some cities that have experienced years of "urbanization" and "industrialization" development, and the problem of illegal construction left over from history is thorny. Li Ming, deputy director of the Urban Management Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau of Tianhe District, Guangzhou, said that in the late 1990s, Tianhe District of Guangzhou was restructured by withdrawing villages, changing from village cooperatives to joint-stock companies, changing the identity of villagers into residents and "growing vegetables" into "growing houses", but the nature of land use could not be changed, which became an irreconcilable contradiction. Take shipai village, Tianhe District as an example. At the beginning, only a small amount of land was left for villagers to live in after a large number of land was expropriated. In order to meet the housing needs, villagers have been constantly rebuilding, and all kinds of illegal construction constitute the dense buildings in shipai village today. However, the relevant departments have no way to start with this historical problem.
The relevant person in charge of Taizhou City said that Taizhou is established by industry, and the private economy is developed. When towns and villages further promote the "three reforms and one demolition" action, they are worried that the demolition may have an impact on enterprises and hinder the sound development of the economy. The historical causes of illegal construction in the enterprise factory area are complex, and there are many small and micro enterprises in some old industrial areas, so it is very difficult to resettle and divert.
At the same time, the grassroots feel overwhelmed because of the violation of "large investment and no subsidy". The relevant person in charge of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province said that the cost of demolition and violation is a huge expense. According to the average price of 30 yuan per square meter, it will cost about 30 million yuan to complete the annual task of 1 million square meters. Except for the construction of small and micro parks, commercial development and other ways of post-demolition, it can produce economic benefits, and most of them are still used for re-cultivation, reclamation and greening, parking lots, trails and other infrastructure construction. A large amount of illegal capital investment has overwhelmed the grassroots government.
The director of the Office of Demolition and Violation of the First District Government in Hangzhou told the reporter that the current cost of forced demolition is from the district government, and the expenditure is relatively large. In 2018, the cost of demolition and violation in Shangcheng District is more than 10 million yuan. There are still problems such as safety guarantee, building garbage disposal and water leakage after demolition, and some residential areas need to be repaired. The repair cost is higher than the demolition cost.
The "complicated procedures" and "reconsideration litigation" have caused the "demolition front" to lengthen. Some grassroots cadres in Hebei Province said that according to the relevant regulations, cases related to land violations need to go through legal procedures such as filing, investigation, notification, punishment, reconsideration, litigation and execution, and it takes six months to enter the court acceptance procedure, which makes it difficult to quickly implement the demolition work.
In addition, the reconsideration litigation caused by the demolition has seriously affected the development of the demolition work. Taizhou city demolition cadres said that it usually takes nine months to one year from the time when the holders of illegal construction do not cooperate, from the time when the administrative punishment decision is made to the time when the illegal demolition is completed according to law. In order to improve efficiency, grass-roots governments often replace administrative procedures according to law with summary procedures when they forcibly demolish violations. In recent years, the number of administrative reconsideration litigation cases caused by illegal demolition has increased obviously. Most of these cases of illegal demolition by summary procedure have lost because of illegal procedures, which not only prolongs the process of illegal demolition, but also brings great pressure to the local government.
As the "sole executor" of the demolition, the grassroots urban management staff in some places said that "there are few people, heavy tasks and insufficient strength". A grass-roots urban management worker in Huangpu District of Guangzhou compared urban management to the last "goalkeeper". Although the work related to "illegal construction" involves many departments, it will be solved through the only "exit" of urban management. According to reports, at present, there are 388 functional requirements given to Guangzhou urban management, and demolition is only one of them. Dawn said that in the face of a wide range of functional tasks, grassroots urban management personnel seem to be unable to do so.
In addition, the illegal construction of new residential buildings involves many households, which has become a chronic disease. Wang Qiang, director of Sanma Office of Yunyan Brigade of Guiyang Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment, said that at present, many developers make false propaganda to lure buyers, such as telling buyers that they can build small houses in corridors of high-rise buildings, expand balconies, and build sun rooms in villa gardens or terraces, which leads to the appearance of illegal construction. This kind of illegal construction has become a stubborn disease because of its wide spread and too many households involved.
A cadre of Putian Squadron of Yunyan Brigade of Guiyang Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Detachment said that a local villa area was opened in 2016, and now most of the 96 villas are illegally built; Another community is a new high-rise building community in recent years, but almost every floor of the 34-story high-rise building has illegal corridors.
Strengthen the combination of source control and unblocking
Some grassroots cadres said that at present, illegal and illegal problems such as unapproved construction have been significantly reduced. In order to reduce the loss of social wealth caused by illegal demolition, it is necessary to establish a sense of building according to law in the whole society, and reverse the ethos of "building without approval, building with fewer approvals and building in rural areas".
Some grassroots cadres said that there are complex reasons behind the problem of illegal construction and illegal land occupation, which are often caused by reasons such as "lack of policies at the stage of problem formation" and "not the main work at present", and they are temporarily shelved because they are harmless to people and animals. It was not until it became a chronic disease for many years that it attracted the attention and determination of local departments. To curb the occurrence of illegal buildings, we should not only carry out a strong centralized demolition to eliminate the stock, but also start from cultivating the concept of land use and construction in accordance with the law in the whole society, establishing an early warning and prevention mechanism, and greatly increasing the illegal cost, so as to avoid "small procrastination and big bombing".
The first is to establish a mechanism of "breaking down every violation" and increase the intensity of cracking down on shock. Some grassroots cadres believe that illegal land occupation and illegal construction are prone to occur frequently, which is directly related to the long-term extensive economic development, weak concept of land use and construction according to law.
Over the years, illegal buildings have been repeatedly banned, and "low illegal cost and high income" are important factors. The monthly rent of a simple auxiliary house of 15 to 20 square meters in Hengfeng Street, Wenling City, Zhejiang Province is seven or eight hundred yuan, and the annual rent of illegally built warehouses demolished in some places in Hebei Province is several hundred thousand yuan, which leads to the problem of knowingly committing crimes and even repeatedly demolishing and building them.
Some grassroots cadres said that the current penalties for land violations mainly focus on warnings, fines, confiscation of illegal buildings, confiscation of illegal property, and demolition within a time limit. The illegal cost is low and the deterrent effect is small. To fundamentally curb the problem of illegal construction, we should greatly increase the cost of illegal construction and form a "powerful shock" so that those who engage in illegal construction "do not pay for it." Relevant persons suggest that the judicial connection mechanism should be straightened out, the transfer system of illegal land occupation cases to public security and courts should be unblocked, and cases with large land occupation and suspected violation of criminal law should be handed over for investigation in time.
The second is to improve the early warning and prevention mechanism and implement joint regulatory responsibilities. Some grassroots cadres said that prevention is more important than demolition, and supervision after approval of urban and rural construction projects should be strengthened to prevent problems such as "what is done is done" and it is not easy to correct. Changjiang Lan, director of the Regulation Department of Shangcheng District Urban Management Bureau in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, said that it is necessary to establish and improve the early warning, prevention and supervision responsibility mechanism for illegal construction, so as to realize early detection and early stop. Form a rapid response mechanism of "early detection, early stop, early report and early treatment", and "discover illegal construction at the beginning and solve it in the bud" and build a "first line of defense" for supervision.
Some grassroots cadres said that it is very important to do a good job in the second half of the article in order to continuously consolidate the results of demolition and prevent the resurgence of illegal construction. Hebei, Zhejiang, Guangdong and other places adhere to the principle of "paying equal attention to demolition and renovation", clean up the demolished construction waste in time, strengthen the planning and management of vacated space and land according to local conditions, and use it to build public service projects such as gardens, public parking lots and convenience markets, so as to maximize the comprehensive benefits of the environment, economy and people’s livelihood and enhance the people’s sense of acquisition.
The third is to establish a joint disciplinary mechanism, combining unblocking with source management. Some grassroots cadres said that the problem of illegal construction has been repeatedly banned. In addition to strengthening prevention and demolition, it is also possible to explore the establishment of a joint disciplinary mechanism, so that enterprises and individuals can never dare to violate the construction and do not want to violate the construction, and truly realize the source management.
Grassroots cadres of urban management departments in Hangzhou, Guangzhou and other places suggested that the situation of illegal construction should be connected with the social credit information system. Houses with illegal construction problems cannot be listed and traded, and owners should be included in the blacklist of untrustworthy people, so that enterprises and individuals can gradually develop from "not daring to violate the construction" to "not wanting to violate the construction". Keep a close eye on key groups such as cadres, public officials and "Two Representatives and One Committee Member" in party member, strictly handle cases online, monitor the case handling procedures throughout the process, and be accountable for ineffective investigation and control.
Some grassroots cadres in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, said that "whoever violates the construction shall bear the demolition costs" and suggested that the punishment should be strengthened. Those who refuse to demolish the illegal buildings and are forcibly demolished by the government should recover the demolition costs from the illegal parties according to law.
In addition, grassroots cadres in many places said that the control of illegal construction should be combined with unblocking, planning a way out for land use according to law, and realizing the protection of cultivated land and ensuring development. Implement the "one map" of land planning to prevent illegal construction caused by different plans. At the same time, increase the adjustment of land planning and supplement of cultivated land, and solve the construction land index for the project in time. (Written by reporters Jing Huaiqiao, Huang Xiao, Liu Zhiqiang and Qi Leijie)
Editor: Yu Jiang
