Improving Living Quality： Renovation of Old ＂System Rooms＂ in Shanghai
The postal system room in Lane 160, Bao ‘an Road, Hengfengli was repaired and delivered to improve the quality of life of residents.
Renovation of the old "system room" in Shanghai Exploration Road
In a century-old alley, wisteria is covered with dense leaves. Looking at it, it is green, with five-star red flags and red lanterns, which embellishes the old alley more brightly.
This is a place full of stories. Before liberation, secret organs such as the Shanghai Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China were successively located here.
A few days ago, the postal system room in Lane 160, Bao ‘an Road, Hengfengli was repaired and delivered. The project of Lane 160 of Bao ‘an Road is the first exploration of the renovation of the system house in Hongkou District, and it is a livelihood problem that has been solved under the joint efforts of Hongkou District People’s Congress, District Housing Management Bureau, Hongfang Group, Sichuan North Road Street, Postal Company, and the Party General Branch of Shanyi Residential Area. The renovation lasted for four months, which not only repaired the "congenital deficiency" of the house, but also added many functional facilities to improve the living conditions and quality of life of residents.
"System room" is a strange term for many young people, which mainly refers to the house built or purchased by the unit for employees to live in.
In the old houses of "two old houses and one village" in Shanghai, the system house is a relatively special category. Especially in the downtown area of Shanghai, the property owners of systematic public houses are diverse, including central enterprises, national research institutions, universities directly under the Ministry of Education, and some restructured enterprises and private enterprises. Some of the public houses in the system are over half a century old, and some have shown signs of dangerous houses. Renovation and repair have become an urgent problem.
The pain of public housing in Hengfengli system
Walking into Hengfengli, people’s eyes are easily focused on those century-old Shikumen houses, but they have never noticed that there is a row of three-story old houses standing opposite them-public houses of the postal system in Lane 160, Baoan Road. It was built between 1930s and 1950s, with 24 gates. At present, there are 115 households, and the earliest houses have a history of nearly 100 years.
The 75-year-old Dai Wenji was born here, and his parents and grandparents were postal system employees. He remembers that "people used to live in the same unit, and everyone basically didn’t close the door, just like a family." Everyone is free to use the bathroom on each floor. "
But in recent years, there are more and more households in the house. "In the past, there was one household on one floor, but now there are two or three households on one floor." Dai Wenji said, "The house is getting older and older, the pipes are rusty and the drainage is not smooth, the wooden floor is leaking, and the stairs are aging. It is not only inconvenient to live, but also has security risks."
Yuan Chunying, 79, has lived here for nearly 30 years and feels the same way. "We like the atmosphere of the old alley, but the internal environment of the house is too dirty. The original wooden window frame is full of holes by white ants, and the kitchen is full of mice."
Why is the system room "down and out" in such a situation? The main reason is that with the changes of the times, many units have been unable to support the maintenance of houses. Among them, the complete set of system rooms are included in the after-sale public houses, and the maintenance of such incomplete system rooms as Lane 160 of Baoan Road becomes a problem.
In 2021, when Shanyin Road was repaired as a whole, only the facade of Lane 160 of Baoan Road was painted, and the interior could not be completely repaired. Seeing that the environment of Lane House has been improved, it has also been integrated into property management, and residents living in the system room can only envy it. Dai Wenji said: "The unit property that used to be responsible for housing maintenance is now only minor repairs, and it is impossible to carry out major repairs because of financial problems."
Repair under discussion
In February of this year, a "face-to-face" contact service for the masses made the residents see hope. Residents’ representatives put forward the idea of repairing houses and improving living quality to Zhu Qinhao and Wang Yanping, Hongkou District People’s Congress representatives. After understanding the residents’ demands, the deputies of the District People’s Congress visited the community for many times and made suggestions.
In order to solve the problem of difficult maintenance of systematic public houses, with the promotion of Hongkou District People’s Congress Standing Committee, Sichuan North Road Street, Hongkou District Housing Management Bureau, District Veterans Affairs Bureau and Hongfang Group finally put the repair on the agenda. Zhang Lei Working Group, a representative of Hongkou District People’s Congress, is involved in every important link of the whole process.
Lane 160 of Bao ‘an Road belongs to Shanyin Road Historical Protection Area. While repairing the existing buildings, it is also necessary to ensure the normal life of residents, which brings many challenges to the construction.
Courtyard reconstruction is a difficult point in the repair process. The patio of each building is only four or five square meters. The patio is full of sundries and a canopy has been built. Shanyi Neighborhood Committee immediately led the alley management committee to persuade residents to clean up sundries, while the construction party set up wooden boards between two opposite windowsills, and workers stood on them for construction. In this way, many problems such as wall leakage, water pipe aging, outdoor overall hidden dangers and so on have been solved, and the old buildings have been effectively protected.
The already soft wooden staircase of Building No.9 was once the biggest safety hazard. In order to ensure safety, residents were temporarily placed in nearby hotels for 3 days, and the construction team worked day and night to replace the wooden stairs as a whole. When replacing other worn treadboards, it is necessary to remove the stair handrails, and some stair handrails have unique patterns, which are of full historical protection value. Therefore, the construction party should be extra careful to avoid damage.
Before the renovation of public kitchen and bathroom, all tenants of the building need to sign for confirmation, but some residents disagree because of historical problems, and some residents disagree because of neighborhood conflicts. To this end, the general party branch of Shanyi residential area took the lead in setting up a temporary party branch composed of housing management department, property management Committee, engineering department and residents’ representatives, and made many visits to coordinate.
In Dai Wenji’s view, this is the most thorough overhaul he has experienced since his birth. "With the joint efforts of many parties, many long-standing contradictions have also been resolved in this overhaul."
Give consideration to personality and overall needs
Most people living in the system room in Lane 160, Bao ‘an Road are elderly people with different needs. To this end, the temporary party branch and the construction team have formulated a "one household, one plan" to provide them with humanized services.
Zheng Jingkang, 74, lives on the second floor and shares a bathroom with her next-door neighbor. The bathroom is only two or three square meters. Although the renovation can’t solve the problem of single use, considering their own habits, Zheng Jingkang and neighbors decided to use two sets of bathroom facilities.
"It’s really a Dojo in a snail shell!" Zheng Jingkang pointed out to reporters at the scene, "Two toilets, two water heaters and two buckets are much more convenient for us! In order to prevent sewage from leaking, the construction team also specially added water strips, and the neighborhood cadres also helped us apply for aging renovation. "
In addition, the general party branch of Shanyi residential area also replaced a number of switches and wires that had been in disrepair for a long time through visits, which solved the problems of unstable voltage and frequent tripping. Zheng Jingkang’s family finally used the new electric meter.
On October 28th, the installation and construction of non-motor vehicle charging piles began in Lane 160 of Bao ‘an Road. Xue Ying, secretary of the General Party Branch of Shanyi Residential Area, told reporters that many residents here have battery cars, and there are also many younger brothers who rent takeout and express delivery. There are about 500 battery cars in Shanyi Residential Area, which has a great demand for charging. In the past, on typhoon days, neighborhood cadres could hardly sleep all night, so they had to constantly patrol, fearing that there was a flying line charging, which would lead to danger.
However, how easy is it to add charging piles in a small alley? On the one hand, the neighborhood committee requires all motor vehicles to park outside the alley and return them to the people; on the other hand, it regulates the parking of non-motor vehicles, and at the same time, it consults every household and constantly updates the scheme.
"In order to solve the problem of electricity consumption, we specially applied for a separate electric meter from the power company, and even consulted the residents on the color of the charging pile, and selected a color that was in harmony with the century-old alley." Xue Ying said that after the installation of charging piles, nearly 70 battery cars can be charged at the same time.
In the vicinity of the charging pile, green flowers will be introduced, and what flowers to plant will be discussed by the residents. After planting, the residents’ green protection team will also be responsible for maintenance. Upon completion, the residential facilities and environment will be more perfect.
After the overhaul, the routine maintenance of the system room in Lane 160, Bao ‘an Road was also included in the agenda. Li Peng, secretary of the Party Working Committee of Sichuan North Road Street, said that according to the current plan, the postal system will entrust the territorial property to carry out integrated management and form a long-term mechanism, which will help to form a cluster effect, and it is also expected that the quality, price and satisfaction of the property will be improved in the future, thus truly improving the quality of life of residents.
What are the difficulties in reforming the system room?
In fact, in Xuhui District, there has been an exploration of system room transformation before.
On April 30th, the residential building No.7-No.8, Lane 341, Kangjian Road, Xuhui District was demolished, rebuilt and delivered, and the first batch of relocated residents got the long-awaited keys to their new homes. It took only one year for Xuhui District to complete the whole process of "starting-signing-building-moving back".
Aunt Zheng Lianxian, a resident, has moved into a new home after the original demolition. She especially lamented: "Our family has survived several typhoons in Shanghai this year. I really didn’t dare to think about it before."
In 2022, the "Implementation Opinions on the Transformation of" Two Old Houses and One Village "issued by Shanghai put forward goals for the transformation of incomplete employee houses and xiaoliang thin-walled houses, and it is planned to implement the transformation of 900,000 square meters of old houses in three years.
According to the current laws and regulations, the renovation of systematic public houses must be funded by property rights units, but in fact, there are few cases in which property rights units actively contribute to the renovation of old houses. Professionals in the housing management department said that there are long-standing difficulties in the complete renovation of systematic public housing, such as the absence of the main body and the lack of funds. When the old house demolition and reconstruction project of No.7-No.8, Lane 341, Kangjian Road was started, the property right was transferred from the original Shanghai Universities of Applied Sciences to Xuhui District, which became the main body of transformation, thus realizing the transformation funded by the district finance. The city and district levels worked together to open up a new road, and finally completed the first urban renewal case of "property right transfer" transformation in Shanghai.
Zhou Yan, deputy director of the Housing Management Bureau of Xuhui District, said that Xuhui District summed up several experiences in the "exploration" of the Kangjian Road project:
First, "property right transfer" is a feasible path in the transformation of systematic public houses. Defining the property owner means that the main body of the transformation can be defined, and the funder can also be defined as the new property owner itself.
Secondly, according to the arrangement, basically all the property units of the system room have no professional strength to implement the management and transformation of the system room. Through the "transfer of property rights", the house renovation will be led by the government’s professional departments, which can not only ensure the compliance and smoothness of the renovation process, but also implement the renovation of old houses with incomplete kitchen and bathroom functions as soon as possible.
However, at present, the case of Shanghai’s "property transfer" system house renovation is still relatively rare. One of the major difficulties is that some system houses have undergone several rounds of restructuring, or the higher management departments have a higher level. Therefore, it is necessary to report to the old houses for renovation. If higher-level units outside Shanghai are involved, the decision-making process of transformation may be lengthened due to different local policies. In addition, in the central city of Shanghai, there was a case that the property right unit of the system house no longer existed, and the residents wanted to renovate but the district government could not find the property right owner, so it was too late to start the renovation of the old house in compliance.
Another difficulty is who should pay for the renovation of the system room. Professionals suggest that the multi-party cooperative funding mechanism should be gradually promoted, that is, the system housing owners, residents and government finances should bear a part according to the actual situation, so as to make the fund pool for old housing renovation more sustainable and truly realize "sustainable urban renewal".
Some professionals also called for the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to cooperate with State Taxation Administration of The People’s Republic of China to update the tax policies involved in the transfer of old housing property rights, provide certain tax relief, and mobilize the enthusiasm of the system property owners to a greater extent.
After the demolition, reconstruction and reconstruction of No.7-No.8, Lane 341, Kangjian Road, all the original 27 households moved back to the original site, and at the same time, 33 sets of newly completed residential buildings were added for affordable housing or integrated resettlement housing in the area. Previously, in the demolition and reconstruction of Fangua Lane in Jing ‘an District, community activity centers and affordable rental houses were added by expanding land use and expanding the scope of renovation.
Is it feasible to introduce market-oriented social capital to participate in the original demolition and construction of the system house? The reporter learned from the relevant departments that the comprehensive renovation of old houses is generally invested by district-level finance and subsidized by municipal finance. Due to the high residential density and limited land scope of incomplete houses, some renovation projects can’t produce the increment of housing units like Kangjian Road Project, and even some projects need to draw households and take measures such as resettlement elsewhere or monetary resettlement, which can’t enhance the attraction of market-oriented capital to participate in the renovation of old houses in the form of "increasing the floor area ratio". In addition, if market-oriented developers are introduced into residential land, they must take the process of bidding, auction and hanging, which involves new cost input.
However, the reporter learned in the interview that the relevant departments of this city are working hard to formulate relevant policies for the transfer and transformation of property rights of systematic public houses, so that the transformation of old houses is no longer "unsustainable" and becomes a long-term solution. (Reporter Zhou Nan Shu Shu)