Supervision tightened on public rental housing

Beijing will strictly inspect the eligibility of tenants of public rental housing projects to make sure the houses are fairly distributed and used by those in need.

The property management service of the housing projects will also be improved, said Qin Haixiang, a commissioner of the Beijing Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

At least two managers will be assigned to each public rental housing community and three to communities containing more than 500 households, said the commissioner.

Property managers will inspect each public rental house at least a year, and if they find a house is rented illegally, the tenants will be ordered to stop their rental, he said.

A tenant lost eligibility to rent a public rental house in June because he sublet it to make a profit, according to the Beijing Housing Security Office.

A regulation enacted in December 2011 stated that low and middle-income earners, new employees and those who are not permanent residents but have worked in the city for a certain number of years, are eligible to apply for public rental housing in Beijing.

The rental price was about 40 yuan ($6.40) per square meter a month.

According to the current policy, the rent is slightly lower than that of neighboring housing, but tenants will get subsidies on rent based on their income levels and housing size, with the maximum subsidy being up to 95 percent of the rent.

The measures released on Monday were aimed at improving the service and management of the public rental housing projects.

Housing authorities were also soliciting suggestions from the public about resident services in public rental housing communities, such as education, healthcare and services for the elderly.

According to Wei Fang, deputy head of the Beijing Housing Security Office, tenants can apply to change public rental houses if their family has to move another area in the city.

As of Monday, 5,036 units of affordable housing are being rented this year, including public rental houses, Wei said.

In the first half of this year, the city started building a total of 160,000 units of affordable houses. Of those units, 70,000 have been completed, Wei said.

During the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), the Beijing government plans to build more than 1 million affordable houses, including these public rental units.