Stricter rules come too late for residents

• Source: Global Times
• [08:24 July 30 2010]
• Comments

A construction worker takes down a building last week on Maoming Road North. Photo: Cai Xianmin

By Chen Xiaoru

Local authorities have announced stricter regulations for government-appointed relocation agencies days after a major relocation project concluded Monday, which saw the final handful of residents in Pudong New Area leave their homes to make way for the construction of Shanghai Disneyland.

Two days after the few remaining of the 2,155 households cleared the area where Disneyland is slated to be built by the year 2014, the Shanghai Municipal Housing Support and Building Administration (SMHSBA) introduced a new points-system that aims to prevent relocation companies from using unlawful tactics to persuade residents to move out.

Residents from four villages comprising the plot of land to house Mickey Mouse and company in the future complained last month that their power and water supplies had been cut off by relocation agencies after they refused to leave their homes.

According to Pan Shengmei, one of the last residents to leave Zhaohang, the largest of the affected villages, she and her family finally ended up moving because they no longer felt safe staying.

"My power kept getting cut off, and I had to go without it for some two months," the woman who owned a small cashmere factory in the village, told the Global Times Thursday. "I also had no water for weeks.

"Five of my cashmere machines were mysteriously burned down one night, and I had to pay more than 14,000 yuan ($2,065) to get them repaired," she said.

Pan said that the breaking point came when she and many other residents could not handle the constant state of fear they were living in, saying that relocation companies had verbally threatened some residents while others suffered physical and violent attacks.

"I really didn't want to leave my home," she said. "But I finally took the measly 80,000 yuan ($11,805) in compensation that we managed to negotiate even though I knew it was unfair.

"My family and I were so completely freaked that we just couldn't stay anymore," she added.

According to the official website of the SMHSBA Thursday, relocation companies caught pulling such pranks will be penalized according to the points-system. Agencies responsible for cutting off the water or power supply to households will be knocked up to 12 points, resulting in the removal of their work permits. No details, however, on what punishment entails for companies, who bully residents out by use of verbal threats or physical violence, were provided.

Villager Pan, who has since settled in nearby Chenqiao village, Thursday wondered why the rules were not sooner implemented.

"We have already suffered so much," she said. "These rules mean absolutely nothing to us now."