Money

'Sleepers town' not welcome in Tongzhou

By Meng Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-08 07:52

Residents of Xihaizi town in Tongzhou sell honeycomb briquets of coal next to the road. The area will be redeveloped soon. [Wang Heng / for China Daily]

Tongzhou new town vetoed the construction of many residential buildings in its core area in an effort to avoid the moniker "sleepers' town", a recent conference on the area's development has revealed.

As many as 12 construction projects out of a total 14 in the core area of the new town cannot be developed into residential buildings. The remaining two projects must combine residential and commercial uses, officials said Tuesday during a conference on the Tongzhou global modern new town construction project.

The core area of the Tongzhou new town is 48 sq km, 16 sq km of which is the most central area, known as the Five River Junction.

"According to our current plan, the center area is all for business use," Yue Peng, the deputy director of Tongzhou district, said during the conference. "No residential community can be built in this area."

He added that in the future, residential communities must be combined with business projects in the new town to avoid it becoming "a town full of sleepers".

Chen Gang, vice-mayor of Beijing, urged investors not to simply treat Tongzhou new town as a real estate project.

He pointed out at the conference that investors should not only bring their passion and money, but also bring technology and industrial projects to build Tongzhou into a sustainable developing town.

The building of Tongzhou new town, which is located in eastern Tongzhou district, is a major focus of the Beijing municipal government in 2010.

According to the blueprint, the area covering 155 sq km is expected to become home to 900,000 people.

The core section of the new town has been divided into three zones, including a cultural tourism zone, a high-end community for both business and residential use and an exhibition service center.

A 200-m-tall hotel and a local landmark with a height of 250 m will be built in the core area along with a museum covering 14.7 hectares, according to Shi Weiliang, the chief engineer of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning.

Tongzhou, roughly meaning "the place for passing through", is at the eastern end of Chang'an Avenue, about 20 km southeast of central Beijing. The entire district of 906 sq km is now home to 1.09 million residents.