Run-down luxury villas stand as monuments to shady developers

JUST off the Beijing airport expressway on the banks of the Elm River lies a dusty, wind-blown ghost town.

Apart from the security guards quietly dozing by the gatehouses, the high-walled housing complex appears almost deserted, with virtually the only sound being an occasional plane taking off from the nearby Capital Airport.

But this is not another ancient village abandoned by the peasantry in favour of more lucrative downtown dwellings. This is Legend Garden Villas, a luxury housing development, completed a year ago and touted by owner China International Trust and Investment Corp (CITIC) as providing a ''lifestyle of grace and elegance'' and a ''garden retreat from the bustle of the city''.

Grace and elegance might be a little difficult to find in the mound of dirt and abandoned machinery that was originally supposed to be a miniature golf course, but there is certainly a distinct lack of bustle in Legend Garden Villas.

Although the Beijing sales agent claims that nearly all the 389 European-style houses and apartments have already been sold to customers from all over the world, hardly anybody actually seems to be living there.

On a recent visit, about the only sign of life at Legend Gardens was a couple playing tennis and an old man sweeping up leaves around the ornamental lake.

The sprawling ''commercial centre'', which was supposed to offer a wide range of high-class shops, restaurants and a business centre, is nothing but an empty steel and glass shell with bare concrete floors.