Research On The Problem Of Compensation For People With Houses Expropriated In Chinese Cities

With the continuous improvement of Chinese economy, it has become thesecond largest economic entity in the world.“Consumption, investment and export”is like three engines which drive the national economy. Urban infrastructureconstruction investment is the important part of Chinese urbanization while landresources are the important part of infrastructure construction investment. Becausethe land resources are naturally regional and not renewable, there is the contradictionbetween the decreasing land supply and increasing city size. For local government,urban housing expropriation is the important way to get the needed land resources fortown development. On one hand, it is good for the reconstruction of the old city andtown development and construction, which also improves residents’living quality. Itis the good policy which benefits both the nation and people. On the other hand,because the related laws and regulations of housing expropriation are not perfect, thegovernment neglects the legal procedures during the practice. The expropriation is toosimple and rude, which causes a lot of social problems and triggers the big socialconflicts.As one relatively big central city in the northeast, Shenyang is the typical oldindustrial base. During the process of urban development and transformation, thelarge scale of housing expropriation projects are done to get more land resources andspeed up the urban industrialization development. As the party of expropriation, thegovernment often disagrees with the person whose house is expropriated in terms ofways and amount of comprehension and other problems. Even the intense conflictshappen. As one professional, the author participated in the whole process from theproject approval to the specific implementation and collected the relatedexpropriation cases. From the perspective of related laws and regulations, the reasonswhy problems were caused are carefully analyzed and the reasonable solutions areoffered. As the guidance law of urban house demolition, the old Regulations on theManagement and Demolition of Urban Houses (hereinafter referred to as Demolition Regulations) has shown its many disadvantages from many years of practice. Forexample, its legislative foundation focuses more on the powerful position of theexpropriator and lacks the protection of legal rights of the other party. The route ofthe protection of their legal rights is not clear. For example, when the relocationhousehold is not satisfied with the amount of comprehension and the agreementdoesn’t reach between two parties, the expropriator can also continue to force todemolish the house during the legal administrative review or administrativeproceeding of the other party. The powerful position causes the frequent conflicts andeven the violence incidents, which seriously influences the social harmony andstabilization. It also goes against the government’s original intention of promotingurbanization construction and improving residents’ living quality and level.In2011the State Council issued Acquisition and Comprehension Ordinance,which aims to change the too powerful position of expropriator, be strict in theprocedures of expropriation, and strengthen the judicial supervision measures. Itspecifically shows that the government is the subject of expropriator and the aim is torealize the “public advantages” and it focuses more on the principle of“comprehension goes before the expropriation”. Meanwhile, the ways ofcomprehension are more flexible and specific. Rights protection measures are alsoprovided if the person refuses to sign the agreement and the judicial final ruling offorced expropriation takes place of administrative forced expropriation measures.Since it was implemented, there has been big improvement in regulating theexpropriation. However, many actual problems are also exposed. For example, therelated clauses on the comprehension for business and industries’ stop-loss are notspecific, and regulations on illegal buildings are too simple. The government lacks infinancial fund and the fund actually comes from the development company. So theexpropriation is still enslaved to the development company, which causes manyproblems in the expropriation compensation dispute settlement mechanism. And thepresent administrative review or proceeding cannot solve them completely. Becausethe development company pursues the commercial profit, for them the lower cost ofhousing expropriation, the better. Huge disagreements on compensation exist andcause the conflict. As the expropriator, the government should take many measures to better solve the conflicts in the expropriation. First, if the compensation is legal andreasonable, the expropriation compensation scale must be enlarged. The market valueis used as assessment value and it should be properly increased according to thepractice. Second, land usage right price evaluation mechanism should be perfectedand the location, development space and other elements must be considered. Third, asthe subject, the government should do it for the purpose of “being beneficial topeople” and cannot strive for profit with the common people. Fourth, the channels ofcompensation fund must be widened. Make good use of the government financingvehicles and develop the construction projects of public service that are beneficial topeople. Fifth, innovate the compensation dispute settlement mechanism. Give play tothe third part and the court to realize the harmonious settlement between thegovernment and the people. Sixth, during the expropriation practice, the problem ofno compensation for the illegal building should be solved properly and it cannot betreated in the simple and rude way. On one hand, affirm the rationality of some illegalbuilding by rationalizing and solving the problems left over by history. On the otherhand, devote greater effort to investigate and solve the new illegal buildings to avoidthe corruption within the government and contain the extension of the scale. Seventh,introduce the independent third party evaluation agency according to the legalprocedures. Issue the evaluation result of the house fairly and objectively. Make surethe evaluation process is open. Enhance the people’s trust to the government throughthe careful work and multifaceted communication with them.