Tangjialing: ready to line up all night

konjaku: still in 2010. Following this article, I compare it to the previous post.

Tangjialing: 151 village households sign contracts to move –stand in line all day and all night to collect inducement awards and new housing

2010-07-19

http://www.soufun.com/news/2010-07-19/3565048.htm

Looking over the new housing

The 20 day period to consider the compensation package has now passed. Yesterday began the phase to agree to move out and fix the inducement awards.

According to the Jibeiwang township government statistics, as of yesterday evening at 11 PM, 151 households have signed the compensation package [to receive a specified compensation amount and agree to new housing] and 221 families have selected lot numbers for new housing. After signing the agreement, the village household has 15 days to move out of their residence, and starting on 08-03 they will be able to choose and buy replacement housing.

Villager line up 22 hours in advance to “snatch a lot number”

According to a villager, for two days the village committee has driven a sound truck around the village broadcasting information about the procedure, advising the villagers that they must go to the village committee office on 7-18 at 8:45, to receive a card , as a preliminary to signing the contract. The card has a number on it, which will be their lot number to pick replacement housing. The lot numbers will be given out in the order that persons appear at the office.  In order to get priority to select the new housing, since the day before yesterday,  villagers have been lining up to  “snatch a lot number,” that is, some 22 hours before the time broadcast. By afternoon of that day, the numbers steadily increased. An eyewitness said that by 5 PM, there were close to 200 people assembled in the public square outside the village committee office, with many expressing the intent to stay there all night.

Soon afterward, the village committee began advising people to return home and wait. They registered people in the order they were in line, and promised that if they came back early the next morning they would be processed according to the order they were in line. By that night at 8 PM, the villagers had dispersed. 170 persons had registered for the next day.

Yesterday morning at 5 AM, several hundred impatient villagers were waiting in the public square, and after three hours, they were at long last able to receive a card with a lot number. According to government statistics, there are more than 1500 households in Tangjialing who will need to move. On the first day of the inducement award period, 221 households took a lot number, but only 151 actually signed the agreement. “First get a lot number, and take a good look at the details of the agreement first. In any case, this first award period will last for 30 days.”The villagers were still taking a wait and see attitude, seeing how much surface area in the new housing they could get, and how large an inducement award was possible.

As for compensation amounts, the Xibeiwang government states that since every villagers house situation is different, the amounts will vary, and they do not want to publicly release them. In earlier drafts of the plan, amounts varies between 2500 yuan to 3800 yuan per square meter.

After a villager signs the agreement, the family must move, vacating their house, within 15 days. Only after that will they be able to choose their replacement housing. The village committee yesterday designated the movie theater as the place where housing selection would take place. They put out scale models of the residential complex to be built, and on the walls hung various floor plans of the types of apartments that would be available.  According to a village committee notice poster, the first selection period would start on 08-03, and last for 12 days.

konjaku: There are (or, were) some 3000 Tangjialing villagers, 1500 households. 1300 villagers signed the Accusation Letter denouncing the village committee. Although it ia hard to say with certainty from just these two articles, 221 families lining up for lot numbers is a minority of the total population. It seems most of the villagers initially made a choice not to participate in the process, ostensibly because of the compensation amounts. The Beiwu village compensation amount was 3500 yuan per square meter (“slightly higher than standard”), but in Dawangjing, a case in which the government was assured of getting high profits for developing the land, the rate was 6500 to 8100 yuan per square meter. The Tangjialing high rate of 3800 does not seem that bad, perhaps what was more important was the villager’s distrust of those offering the compensation package.