Old neighborhood revamps accelerated

A total of 22,800 households have benefited from revamp projects in old Shanghai neighborhoods by the end of August, the government said on Wednesday.

The number of households benefiting accounts for 91.2 percent of all planned for this year, it said, while the total floor area ready for revamps in the same period amounted to 438,000 square meters, or 87.6 percent of all planned by the end of this year.

“Previously we laid the preparation work in the first half of the year and started signing contracts with residents in the second half, but we significantly accelerated the work this year,” Huang Yongping, head of the housing and urban and rural construction management commission, told city legislators on Wednesday.

Also, by the end of August, revamp projects had started on 8,288 households who had been using chamber pots at home, accounting for 92 percent of all planned for this year, the government said.

It has vowed to revamp all neighborhoods in the worst conditions and leave no household in Shanghai using chamber pots by 2025.

A report based on investigations by legislators this year was presented by the urban construction and environmental protection committee of Shanghai People’s Congress on Wednesday and points to some difficulties facing the above goal.

In many of the projects, residential buildings are restructured to ensure that every household has its own kitchen and toilet instead of sharing them with neighbors, but in some cases, residents were not satisfied with the added 2 to 10 square meters to their home and blocked the entire projects, the report said.

The financial sustainability is another problem. The report warns that such revamp projects almost entirely rely on government expenditure due to lack of the design of interest mechanisms.

Another outstanding problem is in legal terms, as current laws ruling housing standards are often at odds with revamp ambitions, the report said.