The Beijing Municipal Government will further optimize its public rental housing management policy and make “mass lottery” its allocation normalcy.

 Issued on: December 8, 2014　　Views: 6817

 Based on recent publicly-collected opinions, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development officially released the Notice on Further Strengthening Public Rental Housing Allocation Management. In the future, all households participating in rental housing allocation will not undertake the project-specific lottery-based unified sequencing but will wait until a later stage when a certain project has met the required moving-in conditions and intention registration can be organized separately in a project-specific manner. Households undertaking the intention registration of the project will select houses, sign contracts and go through moving-in formalities directly in accordance with the previous sequence number. This signals that Beijing Municipal Government's allocation progress of public rental housing will further be accelerated, the allocation methods will be further optimized and become more flexible and the utilization rate of affordable housing resources will be further improved. The Notice is to come into effect from January 1 next year.

 Commencement of rental housing allocation six months in advance.

 According to the Notice, the property rights holding unit of public rental housing shall prepare rental housing allocation and operation management plans six months before the houses meet moving-in conditions. Upon the approval of the housing security department, they will then issue the rental housing allocation notice in the municipal construction and investment center for affordable housing or on the district or county government website. Compared with previous regulations, the Notice has moved up the commencement date of Beijing Municipal Government's allocation of public rental housing work to six months instead of the previous 60 days before the houses satisfy the moving-in conditions, so as to ensure that various allocation tasks will be completed with the required quality and quantity before the houses satisfy the moving-in conditions and ensuring that the short-term 'gap' in the house source can be avoided.

 The 'mass lottery' will become the allocation normalcy.

 On July 31st of this year, seven public rental housing projects including Tangshan Jindi Langyue of Fangshan, Xiaotun Xincheng of Fengtai, the Mentougou Lead Wire Plant, Daxinggao Rice Store, the Phase III of Chaoyang Changying property, the No. 1 land of Shuangqiao & Jingqiao of Chaoyang District and Shunghe Home will start rental allocation facing the six districts of Beijing and the three districts and counties in which the house sources are located. Unlike the previously adopted, project-based method of affordable housing allocation by lottery, this round of allocation will adopt a centralized packing method to pack up the 7531 house sources into seven projects expected to be completed within this year, conduct a public lottery together and carry out house selection and moving-in procedures in batches by means of a 'mass lottery'. This means that all households participating in rental housing allocation will not be subject to the project-specific lottery-based unified sequencing at the beginning, but will wait until a certain project has satisfied the required moving-in conditions in the later stages, where intention registration will be organized separately in a project-specific manner. Households undertaking the intention registration of the project will select houses, sign contracts and go through moving-in formalities directly in accordance with the previous sequence number. Compared with the previous allocation method of a project-specific lottery, this kind of 'mass lottery' approach not only reduces the number of occasions on which lottery work must be organized, it also improves allocation efficiency, expands the selection scope of house sources and promotes the participating households to select more suitable house sources in a comprehensive manner by taking into consideration their rental affordability, commuting distance and other relevant factors. Based on available information, this approach has also been recognized by most of the participating families. Seven projects have attracted more than 25,000 households in total to participate in the rental housing allocation. The above-mentioned practices are basically in line with the Notice regarding the spirit that "the housing security management departments at district and county levels shall organize the households registered with the affordable housing program to carry out an open lottery on an annual basis so as to determine the house selection sequence, and shall also organize intention registration and monitor the Owner in carrying out house selection by sequence in accordance with the public rental housing allocation scheme". On such a basis, the 'mass lottery' allocation methods used in seven public rental housing projects including Jindi Langyue of Fangshan this year will probably become the normalcy for future practices of affordable house allocation.

 The surplus house sources from the lottery will be allocated to registered households in a 'first come, first served' manner.

 As provided by the Notice, for the surplus house sources from the open lottery, the Owner may, upon approval, issue the rental housing allocation notification citywide on the official website of Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Registered households meeting the required conditions may apply for renting with the Owner of the registration notice within the period specified by the Notice and enjoy the rental allowance in accordance with relevant policies. The rental housing allocation will be carried out in the order of application reception by the Owner, under the principle of 'first come, first served'. Based on the above-mentioned provisions, the rental housing allocation scope of the surplus public rental housing sources from future lotteries will be further expanded and the rental housing allocation procedure further simplified, so as to facilitate the expansion of the scope of the integrated allocation of house sources and promptly dispose of the limited number of surplus houses resulting from the lottery.

 The surplus house sources may be rented by social units through collective leasing.

 As provided in the Notice, surplus public rental housing sources not yet leased after the expiration of the application period specified in the notification issued by the Owner may be collectively rented by houseless employees with Beijing urban household registration on the basis of social units. The specific procedures are as follows: the property unit will inform the public on the surplus public rental housing situation and the social units will apply to the Owner for collective leasing, which will determine the targets of the collective leasing by taking into consideration the house source together with the application situation and develop rental housing allocation schemes before implementation upon the approval of the housing security management department.

 With regard to contract signing, on the one hand the Owner is required to sign the collective leasing contract with the social units so as to define the assistance responsibility of the latter to the former. On the other hand, the Owner and social units are required to sign a three-party house leasing contract with their employees. The leasing contract will be incorporated into the municipal housing security information system for the purpose of management. With regard to the rental and tenancy term, the rental standard for collective leasing shall be determined in accordance with the standard for public rental housing while the tenancy term shall not exceed two years in principle, which may be renewed upon approval. The contract term for collective leasing is slightly shorter than that for the security households. With regard to management, the collective house sources shall be managed in a regulatory way in accordance with management provisions for the later stages of public rental housing in Beijing.

 Based on available information, since 2009 with the introduction of the public rental housing policy, the Beijing Municipal Government has been constantly innovating its construction and management modes and increasing the housing supply; in addition to supplying houses to households qualified for registration under the principle of "three-tier review and twice publicity" through open lottery, a number of districts and counties have further introduced a number of measures including public rental housing in the industrial park, public rental housing for talents and public rental housing applications for households without Beijing household registration, all playing an important role in the resolution of the variety of housing problems faced by the Beijing Municipal Government. On the whole, the collective leasing system for public rental housing supplemented by the Notice has expanded the scope of public rental housing allocation under certain conditions to cover urban houseless households in Beijing, not only improving the allocation efficiency of public rental housings but also serving as an effective measure to fully utilize public resources, which can also be deemed as an approach to dynamically adjusting access conditions for affordable housing. This system is in line with the relevant regulations specified in the Notice of the Beijing Municipal People's Government on Further Strengthening the Construction and Management of Public Rental Housing (JZF [2011] No.61) and the legislative spirit of the provisions of the urban basic housing security regulations being considered by the Municipal People's Congress.