Seven Years of Waiting for Relocation Houses Turns Out to be Shoddy Work; Sichuan Villagers Defend Their Rights

In Sichuan’s Chengdu, Jianyang City, Caichi Town, hundreds of villagers in Luo family village have been fighting for their rights since the beginning of the month, as they are dissatisfied that the resettlement houses are “substandard projects”, with various parties blaming each other and so far no concrete solution has been found.

In 2018, the local government carried out relocation for Luo family village due to the construction of an airport and reservoir. Over 4,000 households of villagers had been renting houses outside for 7 years. Finally, on March 1st this year, the villagers received the keys to the resettlement houses, only to discover during the renovation that the houses were entirely substandard projects.

A villager, Luo Juan (alias), revealed to a reporter that during the renovation process, they found serious safety issues in the houses, such as multiple cracks in the structural beams of the basement, roof cracks, water accumulation, and more. Additionally, the resettlement houses also had severe quality issues, including absence of waterproofing on bathroom walls, makeshift waterproofing using plastic bags, missing moisture-proof surfaces on bathroom ceilings, leaking around windows, improper installation of wiring and plumbing on the ceiling, cracked floors, exposed steel mesh, and so on.

“When turning on the water during renovation, some places had explosion in the angle valves, drainage pipes cracked, leaks appeared everywhere. ” said Luo Juan.

According to Luo Juan, since March 2nd, villagers have been going to the property management, township government, and town government to report the situation, with peak times seeing four to five hundred people.

She mentioned that on March 3rd, villagers were notified to attend a meeting at the property management office to address the issues, but when villagers arrived, no official representatives were present. At that time, villagers were quite agitated, shouting angrily on the spot. Eventually, villagers threatened to break down the door before the leaders came out and said that there would be a meeting on March 4th with construction units, housing authorities, government officials, and villagers.

On March 4th, a large number of villagers went to the township government, but no specific solutions were offered, only mentioning repairs for the problems, which the villagers did not agree with.

“No specific plans were discussed during the meeting. They just mentioned about future repairs and fixes. However, the method they proposed is ineffective.” she said, with all parties blaming each other.

Currently, a major problem facing the villagers is water leakage. Seven or eight households have been flooded, forcing the property management to shut off the main water valve. Luo Juan mentioned that one of her family’s houses had been flooded due to water leakage from the upstairs unit during renovation. The house was intended for her parents, and though the furniture had already been moved in, it was soaked overnight.

“Now we have to decide whether to renovate and ask the upstairs neighbor if they plan to renovate. If they don’t, there could be future leaks during their renovation, causing damage to our house. Then where do we seek justice?”

Luo Juan said the villagers’ demand is for the government to distribute renovation funds in cash to the villagers, allowing them to renovate on their own to ensure quality. Currently, the villagers no longer trust the quality of repairs done by the developers.

As of now, the authorities have yet to provide a specific solution, simply instructing villagers to tally up the issues in each household.

Luo Juan expressed the helplessness felt by thousands of villagers, as they are unable to move into their new houses, facing economic challenges when renting. Resettlement funds and transitional payments are no longer being provided to the villagers. Only two people in her household are working with income, and in recent years, the elderly have been relying on resettlement funds for living expenses.

“Now, especially for the elderly, it’s very painful because they have never lived in a decent house throughout their lives. They finally have new houses to live in, but now it’s impossible to move in.” she said, explaining that the villagers are in a state of helplessness.

Calls to the local township government by the Epoch Times reporter went unanswered.