Voices

How to turn dodgy houses into a legal enterprise

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-25 11:46

The Pangu Plaza is renowned all over China, let alone in Beijing. It is said its rooftop courtyard houses are only for lease, not for sale, with rents as high as 1 million yuan per day. You can imagine their prices during the Beijing Olympics. The public has just known from the commission of urban planning that the courtyard houses couldn't be sold. But the project can now be traded legally with the administrative penalties.

Yet, four questions are left to be answered.

First of all, the Pangu Plaza would have gone through all kinds of inspection and supervision from authorities during the construction period. The plaza is right beside the iconic Bird's Nest Stadium and the illegal structure is too grand to be overlooked. Then there comes the question why the authorities have not found it out and corrected the mistake? Probably these authorities turned a blind eye to the project after granting the approval and they are to blame of course.

Secondly, all projects can only put in service after they are checked and accepted, and put on record by the authorities. The rooftop courtyard houses are an indispensable part of the Pangu Plaza. Now that the courtyard houses are illegal, then the entire project is sure to be implicated. That is to say, the project upon completion shouldn't have been approved and accepted by departments in charge of planning, construction and fire. Yet the project went into operation with warm response from market and media. Why was that?

Thirdly, the commission of urban planning reportedly had investigated and punished the project as early as 2009. But why did the public come to know about it so late? According to regulations on the public disclosures, the government should take the initiative and give priority to the disclosures of information related to urban and rural development. Was the late disclosure here due to technical breakdowns or some other some reasons?

Fourthly, the information on the penalty is not very complete, without details on fines and other actions. The law says that illegally built structures can be kept, dismantled or seized with fines. As such the penalty on the project is not the most severe. However, the government should give a convincing reason why the project was allowed to exist with fines. It is not only required by lawful enforcement but can also help to prevent government officials from collaborating with developers in reaping huge profits.

(Excerpts of an editorial that appeared in Beijing News on Feb 24.)