Should the public space for commercial housing be abolished? Recently, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued a notice on the third public consultation on the “Residential Project Specifications”, which did not mention that “residential buildings should be traded with the area used in the suite”, which is particularly eye-catching.
The reason why it is so eye-catching is that, on the one hand, the controversy over the area of public pools has always existed. This year, a number of representatives mentioned the topic again at the National Two Sessions, and continued to sparked controversy. On the other hand, when comments were first solicited in 2019, the “Code” clearly mentioned that “residential buildings should be traded on the basis of the area used in the suite”. At that time, the drafting note at the end of the article mentioned: At present, my country’s residential buildings are mainly traded on the basis of construction area, so there will be the problem that the construction area of the same project is the same but the use area of the suite is different, so as to exacerbate the contradiction of “common pool area hurting people” . In the last two consultations, this provision has disappeared.
“Public pool area hurts people”, it should be said to be an indisputable fact. The reason is that the public pool area lacks legal basis and institutional constraints, resulting in inconsistent and opaque calculation coefficients. For the same building area, some have a 90% room rate, some have only 70%, and some even have only 60%. How to calculate it, whether it is accurate or not, can only be left to the developers to talk about themselves. However, ordinary home buyers lack in-depth understanding and ability to measure the area of public pools, and they cannot measure it with a ruler. Buying a house is like “opening a blind box”.
At the time of the heated discussion, there is another question commonly raised by netizens: if the total price of the house is the same, no matter whether the building area or the usable area is used, the only difference is It’s just the unit price, so why is it necessary to cancel the public pool area? Some scholars have made a vivid analogy to this: there are durians sold whole, and durians sold without shells. Although the unit price of the latter is high, it can avoid the uncertain impact of the weight of the durian shells on the price, which makes people feel more confident. What you see is what you get” peace of mind.
The reason is not complicated, but the changes in the relevant expressions of the “Code” show that the cancellation of the public pool area is not as simple as imagined, and it may face various resistance. For example, people who have already bought a house default to the shared area, and those who have not bought a house only pay for the use of the area. Will it destroy the existing housing price system? The public pool area is not isolated. It is also accompanied by specific expenses such as property fees, heating fees, surveying and mapping fees, etc., which affect the maintenance of public spaces such as elevator shafts, pipeline wells, and stairwells. How should the conflict of interest be adjusted? If the public pool is not priced, will it cause developers to reduce the area of the public pool and affect the living experience?
Although these factors need to be taken into consideration, in practice, it is not entirely impossible to cancel the pooling. as early as 2In 2002, Chongqing Municipality required the construction area of the set as the basis for pricing in the form of local regulations. And Hong Kong, which invented the public pool area, also abolished it a few years ago. At that time, Hong Kong unified the pricing method of new houses, set up a transition period for second-hand housing, and allowed the simultaneous coexistence of building area pricing and interior area pricing. These good experiences and practices are worth learning from.
The reform is a complex and systematic process. If it is difficult to cancel the public share area temporarily, it will not hinder the clear direction of the reform, and it will be carried out in an orderly manner according to local conditions. For example, the “useable area” should be uniformly marked on the real estate property certificate to prepare for the cancellation of the public pool, or strengthen the source management, clarify the scope and standard of the public pool, and resolutely prevent developers from making tricks on the public pool, and resolutely prevent the “public pool” wounded people”.
(Original title: Common pool area cannot be a confused account)