China plans to streamline process for building affordable homes as part of efforts to ease property prices
The plans are likely to seek universal guidelines for applications by non-property firms to build on land they hold, rather than the current case-by-case approach
China is working on plans to make it easier for non-property companies to build affordable homes on land they hold, a move that potentially could make huge tracts of land available for housing and help rein in the country’s high property prices.
Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming made the announcement at a national conference last week, but did not elaborate on the plans, which come as Chinese authorities work on ways to increase land supply for housing.
While a series of anti-speculation policies in the past two years have begun to have an effect, with property prices falling in big cities and rises slowing in smaller cities, a shortage of buildable plots – the state is the sole provider of zones for residential development – remains key to solving the fundamental imbalance in housing demand and land supply.
The government has already begun a trial scheme to convert collectively owned rural land to residential usage through the building of rental housing, with 13 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, taking part.
Analysts believe the new plan could mean that non-property firms would have an easier time converting land to residential use.
“This positive change will ultimately lead to a more flexible land supply regime,” said Yan Yuejin, research director at E-house China R&D Institute. “There have been conversions before, but rarely has the government openly said that land could be transferred to residential land.”
“But one red line is private homes cannot be built on such land,” Yan said.