The General Office of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development recently issued a notice announcing the fourth batch of replicable policy mechanisms for the renovation of old urban residential communities.

The notice stated that recently, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development focused on issues identified by the State Council's major inspections and audits, as well as problems concentrated in public feedback—such as unscientific and unreasonable renovation plans for old urban residential communities in some localities—and summarized in a targeted manner the replicable policy mechanisms and typical practices used by various localities to solve these problems, forming the "List of Replicable Policy Mechanisms for the Renovation of Old Urban Residential Communities (Fourth Batch)."

The list identifies difficult problems and their manifestations and causes in six areas of old urban residential community renovation in some localities: "unscientific and unreasonable renovation plans," "insufficient overall coordination," "inadequate mobilization of residents for co-construction, with residents' principal role not fully brought into play," "extensive construction organization, with common quality problems in renovation projects in some localities," "difficulty in establishing long-term management mechanisms, making renovation results hard to sustain," and "difficulty in raising funds through multiple channels, with some localities relying mainly on central subsidies to carry out renovation." It also provides specific measures for solving these problems.

For example, regarding the problem of "unscientific and unreasonable renovation plans," the manifestation and cause are described as: "The priority order for including communities in the renovation plan was not determined based on the results of surveys and screenings of supporting facility shortcomings and safety hazards in the communities, with comprehensive consideration of the facility conditions of communities to be renovated and residents' wishes; projects included in the annual renovation plan were not planned sufficiently in advance, with haste to complete commencement tasks and inadequate preliminary work such as public consultation." The practices of Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province—"establishing a project database for old urban residential community renovation, conducting competitive comparison and selection of project renovation plans, and selecting the best for inclusion in the annual plan"—and Beijing Municipality—"implementing a working mechanism of 'residents apply, opinions are solicited first to formulate a plan, and only then is it included in the annual plan'"—are worth learning from.

Regarding the problem of "insufficient overall coordination," the manifestations and causes are: "No dedicated working mechanism has been established for government overall coordination, block-and-sector collaboration, and joint management by all departments, with individual departments working alone and no synergy formed"; "renovation plans lack overall coordination, with items omitted or left out and weak systematicness"; "insufficient efforts to coordinate pipeline units for water, electricity, roads, gas, and other utilities to participate in renovation"; and "construction lacks overall coordination, with each construction entity going its own way during renovation and improper construction sequencing." The practices worth learning from include: Kaifeng City, Henan Province—"adopting an organizational leadership model of 'one leading group plus seven specialized task teams' to strengthen overall coordination of old urban residential community renovation"; Wuhan City, Hubei Province—"strengthening joint review of renovation plans and enhancing content coordination"; Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province—"comprehensively considering residents' current and long-term needs and actively promoting the simultaneous installation of elevators in old urban residential communities undergoing renovation"; Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province—"seconding professionals in 'water, heating, electricity, gas, and communications' from departments and units such as housing and urban-rural development, urban management, sports, communications management, power supply, and water supply to form a municipal-level specialized task team that works together in a centralized office and pulls in the same direction to coordinate and advance the renovation of specialized facilities in old residential communities"; Beijing Municipality—"changing the original implementation approach in which each specialized operating unit separately carried out 'survey and design, formulation of renovation plans, project approval, project bidding, and project acceptance' for different professional pipelines, and optimizing it so that the implementing entity organizes all professional companies to uniformly survey professional pipeline conditions, uniformly prepare design plans for fund raising and construction organization for bundled implementation of professional pipelines, uniformly handle project approval, uniformly conduct project supervision, and uniformly conduct acceptance and handover"; Chengdu City, Sichuan Province—"before construction of old urban residential community renovation, the lead departments of each district (county) promptly notify professional operating units for water, electricity, gas, and other utilities of project site information; professional operating units organize technical personnel to conduct on-site surveys, confirm the site information for implementing specialized facility renovation, and prepare special renovation plans; on this basis, the project implementation unit for old residential community renovation prepares an overall renovation construction plan, optimizes the construction process, and coordinates organization and implementation"; and Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province—"fully promoting the whole-process engineering consulting service model for old urban residential community renovation projects to improve project management efficiency and quality."