The much-watched renovation of old urban residential communities is currently progressing smoothly. Data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development shows that in 2024, the national plan calls for the new construction/renovation of 54,000 old urban residential communities. According to statistics reported by various localities, from January to June this year, 33,000 old urban residential communities nationwide began renovation. By region, 10 areas—Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong, Hebei, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Qinghai, Chongqing, Guizhou, and Hunan—had commencement rates exceeding 70%.

More than 100 million residents benefit

The renovation of old urban residential communities is a major livelihood project and development project, of great significance for meeting the people's needs for a better life, promoting livelihood benefits and expanding domestic demand, advancing urban renewal and the transformation of development and construction modes, and promoting high-quality economic development. In 2020, China sounded the call for comprehensively advancing the renovation of old urban residential communities.

Regarding the phased achievements China has made in renovating old urban residential communities, Wang Shengjun, spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and director of the Department of Housing Reform and Development, recently introduced that since the Party Central Committee and the State Council deployed and implemented the renovation of old urban residential communities, a total of 250,000 old urban residential communities have begun renovation nationwide. By carrying out the "corridor revolution, environment revolution, and management revolution," more than 300,000 kilometers of various old pipelines for water, electricity, gas, and heating have been renewed and upgraded, more than 120,000 elevators have been installed, more than 3 million parking spaces and more than 110,000 electric vehicle charging piles have been added through renovation, and more than 72,000 community service facilities such as elderly care and childcare have been added. According to statistics, about 44 million households, or more than 100 million residents, have gained tangible and visible benefits.

China has proposed that by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, based on local conditions, efforts should strive to basically complete the renovation task for old urban residential communities built before the end of 2000 that require renovation. The renovation of old urban residential communities will continue to advance.

The recently issued "Five-Year Action Plan for Deepening the Implementation of the People-Centered New Urbanization Strategy" emphasizes advancing the renovation of old urban residential communities. Focusing on the renewal of supporting facilities such as water, electricity, roads, gas, communications, postal services, heating, fire protection, security, and domestic waste classification, as well as the repair of public areas within communities, it will solidly advance the renovation task for old urban residential communities built before the end of 2000 that require renovation, and implement in an orderly manner the renewal, renovation, and reinforcement projects of urban housing buildings. At the same time, it will carry out, in accordance with local conditions, the renovation and construction of community environments and supporting facilities, building energy-efficiency renovation, and more. Focusing on the needs of the "elderly and children" groups, it will advance the construction of embedded community service facilities, strengthen barrier-free environment construction and age-friendly renovation, and improve the level of community public services.

Solving urgent, difficult, worrying, and eagerly awaited problems

What should be renovated in old urban residential communities? The expectations of community residents should rightly be the focus of renovation. In renovating old communities, localities adhere to the mass line: what is renovated and how it is renovated are all discussed with community residents, with multiple parties working together to ensure good deeds are done well.

Mudan Community in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, was built and put into use in the 1980s. Due to the lack of service facilities such as elderly care and childcare, outdated infrastructure, municipal pipe networks in disrepair for years, and insufficient public space, residents had a strong desire for renovation. After the old community renovation was launched, through community checkups, a community checkup team composed of community "people's designers" and community grid workers undertook routine community checkup work and scientifically and precisely formulated construction plans based on the community's shortcomings. Before and during the renovation, community residents participated extensively; 15 deliberation meetings were held successively, more than 2,800 questionnaires were completed, and a demand list tailored to residents' wishes was created.

The old community renovation project in the Hongyupo area of Chongqing explored a renovation approach of multi-party consultation and co-construction. Following the approach of "Party building guidance, grassroots promotion, democratic consultation, and professional review," it formed a five-deliberation working mechanism of "residents propose—everyone discusses—community reviews—professional deliberation—final decision," with residents, relevant departments, subdistrict communities, and the project company jointly determining the construction, management, and operation plans for the old community renovation.

Through multi-faceted, multi-channel, and multi-path investment, localities have solved urgent, difficult, worrying, and eagerly awaited problems for community residents, such as difficulty in parking and insufficient charging facilities.

Attracting social capital participation helps expand the funding sources for old community renovation. The old community renovation project in the Hongyupo area established a project company jointly by state-owned enterprises and social capital. By tapping idle resources and asset reuse in the area, community, and residential compounds, as well as resources such as parking, farmers' markets, supermarkets, advertising, and cleaning, it achieves sustainable operation and profitable repayment.

Building an age-friendly society is an inherent requirement for realizing Chinese-style modernization. At present, improving elderly care services has attracted great attention from many community residents. In Mudan Community, people aged 60 and above account for 40%. Through renovation, facilities such as an elderly dining hall, senior activity room, assisted bathing room, day care room, and multipurpose hall have been provided, and professional institutions have been introduced through government purchase of services to provide residents with 12 services including meal assistance, bathing assistance, cleaning assistance, and medical care, meeting the diverse needs of the elderly.

In the renovation of some old communities, property management services have also been introduced to establish and improve long-term community management mechanisms and jointly consolidate and maintain the results of renewal and renovation.

In the renovation of old communities in the Hongyupo area, a professional property service company was introduced to be responsible for property management within the communities of the entire area and in surrounding public areas. A community self-governance leading group with hierarchical leadership by the subdistrict Party working committee, community Party committee, grid Party branch, and Party group was established to coordinate, organize, guide, and mobilize self-governance work in each community within the area. Four volunteer teams—for civilized persuasion, domestic waste classification, conflict mediation, and safety patrol—were formed to work with the property company in co-construction, co-governance, and co-management.

In the old community renovation project of Changshengyuan Community in Beijing, owners were organized to vote to merge 21 independent building compounds into one property management area, and a property service enterprise was introduced through public bidding for unified management.

Establishing an orderly renewal and renovation mechanism

Wang Shengjun introduced that in renovating old urban residential communities, it is necessary not only to renovate existing old communities well, but also to take a long-term view and accelerate the establishment of an orderly renewal and renovation mechanism for residential communities featuring checkups to diagnose problems and renovation to cure them, and to carry out targeted renovation of housing buildings, infrastructure, service facilities, barrier-free environment construction, and age-friendly renovation.

At present, the three systems of housing checkups, housing pensions, and housing insurance are being urgently studied and established to provide full-life-cycle safety guarantees for the safe use of housing in communities. The three systems are interconnected and mutually linked, with the aim of providing full-life-cycle safety guarantees for housing. It is understood that some regions have already carried out pilot work on the above three systems.

Yantai City in Shandong Province proposed exploring the introduction of three systems: urban residential pensions, urban residential checkups, and urban residential insurance. Urban residential pensions are to be explored by raising funds through inclusion in land transfer costs, fiscal budget allocations, contributions by construction units, and individual contributions, to be used for housing checkups, purchasing housing insurance, and subsidies for repairing public areas. They consist of public accounts and individual accounts, jointly forming a funding guarantee system for full-life-cycle housing management. The goal is that by 2025, a quality and safety management system covering the full life cycle of housing will be comprehensively established, and the quality of housing construction and the level of safety management will be improved overall.

Qinghai Province encourages localities to carry out pilot explorations of the three systems in urban affordable housing projects such as public rental housing, affordable rental housing, and the renovation of old urban residential communities. In May this year, China Continent Property & Casualty Insurance Co., Ltd. Qinghai Branch signed an insurance service agreement with relevant local departments to provide insurance services for two public rental housing communities, including Minxinyuan in Chengbei District of Xining, and four old communities in Chengzhong District.

Wang Shengjun stated that the housing and urban-rural development departments will, together with relevant departments, take enabling the people to live in better houses as the basis, systematically advance the construction of good houses, good communities, good neighborhoods, and good urban areas, create an upgraded version of old urban residential community renovation, and create higher-quality living spaces for the people.