Fast-track demolitions leave residents homeless
- Source: Global Times
- [02:32 May 26 2010]
- Comments
By Song Shengxia and An Baijie
Some of the 1,000 households in a poverty-stricken county in northern Hebei Province who were forced to abandon their homes in March on short notice to give way to a massive infrastructure project claimed Wednesday that they have not received full compensation and that they were poorly resettled.
In what appears to be part of the province's attempt to accelerate urbanization, the local government in Guangping county of Handan City demolished more than 330,000 square meters of residences within 10 days, starting March 18, to make way for a 2-billion-yuan ($293 million) urban construction project.
The demolition is ongoing, and some residents who have been staying in makeshift tents are still awaiting compensation, local residents said.
Zhai Xibo, 43, a Guangping resident, was forced to leave his home on May 11 after a group of workers hired by developers bulldozed his house in a few hours.
"No one officially told us when our homes would be destroyed or how much we would get for compensation. Then my home was suddenly gone," he said.
Zhai was forced to leave his village on the second day after his home was destroyed. He is now in Beijing, temporarily working at a construction site. His wife currently stays at a warehouse owned by her coworker.
He said that nobody has contacted him regarding compensation.
By comparison, Li Deyun, another local resident, was relatively luckier.
Li received 89,000 yuan for her 290-square-meter residence and 0.2 hectares of farmland, which were requisitioned in March.
She said the compensation ranges from 300-570 yuan per square meter, and she received the lowest amount. The average housing price in Guangping is 1,500 yuan per square meter, according to a local property agency's website.
But because the compensation she received can hardly buy her a new residence, she and her husband had to stay in a makeshift shed of no more than 10 square meters on the roadside at the entrance to her village for almost two months, while sending their child to stay with a relative.
She has now moved to a temporary residence provided by her village production brigade.
"I had no choice. All residents living in my neighborhood must leave, and at once, because of the project of 'Great Changes in Three Years'," she said without further elaborating, hinting that she is concerned for her safety if she "speaks too much."
In an e-mail to the Global Times, Zhao Fengshan, a spokesman of the Guangping government, said all relocated residents would be compensated ac-cording to the conditions of their former residences.
"The average compensation is 600 yuan per square meter, with the highest reaching 900 yuan per square meter in prime areas," Zhao wrote.
A total of 930 families out of a total of 1,070 relocated have received compensation, and each family will receive 2,000 yuan as transitional settlement compensation, according to Zhao.
"There is room for us to improve in our work, and we are correcting irregular practices," Zhao said in the e-mail.
