Village Renovation Advancement in Underdeveloped Areas based on Village Allocation Planning

Xiaoyun LI, Rong YI

Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China

A new upsurge in village planning and construction is in the making nationwide since the proposal of constructing new socialist countryside and beautiful countryside,with progresses. It has become a fo cus among scholars[1-4]. However,disharmonies are emerging.For example,it is common for village renovation in some towns and countryside, which proceeds according to the same model and blueprint, even for some places not appropriate for demolition and reconstruction. What’s worse, because of unordered housing,lots of lands are left unused, resulting in the phenomenon of “empty village”, seriously affecting village landscapes and optimization of rural land resources. In some underdeveloped regions,in particular, due to inappropriate handling of the relationship between village allocation and renovation, village renovation even proceeds before planning during the construction of new countryside and beautiful countryside.Generally speaking, new countryside and beautiful countryside should be constructed from the reality in rural areas and highlights should be given to village renovation to accelerate village constructions basically. Therefore, the research explored how to advance village renovation and improve rural living environment in underdeveloped areas under the guidance of village allocation.

Status quo and Problems of Village Renovation in Underdeveloped Areas

Currently, some progress has made on village renovation in underdeveloped areas, but the existing problems can not be ignored either.Firstly, demolition and new construction proceeds in large scales. Some villages just apply urban planning model mechanically or even constructions proceed without plans.Secondly,the village renovation characteristics are similar.It is surveyed that renovation plans in most villages differ insignificantly, and the symbolic landscapes are not so distinct.Specifically,most villagers choose natural landscapes as landmarks, and less atten-tion is paid to village habitat or custom.Thirdly, public participation is lower in planning.It is necessary for village renovation to take public opinions into consideration in early stage of renovation planning in order to get the key points in the planning, so that the villagers’problems can be well resolved.It is researched that the villagers taking part into the survey are limited, not to mention villagers being consulted.On the other hand, most village plans are literal statements or drawings, so that it is hard for most villagers to understand the surveys, affecting public participation in village planning and renovation.

Planning of Village Allocation

The principle of village allocation

Regional village allocation proceeds with highlights to towns and central villages by consolidating natural villages and constructing central villages with consideration of village development strategies and status quo. The principle of determination of towns and central villages is to consult general planning of the higher-grade administrative divisions,and to consider facility services and farming diameters, as well as regional infrastructure and social facilities. Furthermore, geographical location, historical culture,custom, agglomeration effect, and economic base should be taken into consideration also from the perspectives of regional economic and social development. Additionally, the principle of grass-roots village is to determine the villages can not be maintained, and then to advance undeveloped villages into the villages with better infrastructure.Besides,village allocation should be based on specific development strategies under guidance of coordinating urban and rural development, regional development, social and economic development, and nature and human being development,as well as the rule of driving cities relying on countryside, and promoting countryside depending on cities,with interplay between urban and rural areas[5].

The planning content

According to village allocation principle and urban system and organic town planning, village renovation plan firstly analyzes administrative villages on basis of status quo and background of villages, concludes the scale,industry,function,space, facility distribution and then makes predictions and determines the villages should be merged or remained. Then,the villages left can be classified into constructed villages, transformed villages and control villages, and the development trends are well defined.

Top priority should be given to central village construction. Specifically,the scattered,remote or small natural villages are merged into nearby administrative villages and original locations are reclaimed into farmlands, to avoid dispersed evolvement of villages, functional or facility losses and reduce investments to villages, covering roads, water supply, schools, and hospitals. Meanwhile, the use rate of facilities available should be enhanced. The residential settlements with poor economy, inaccessible roads, and unavailable services could be merged to larger settlements with advanced economy,convenient transportation, complete service facilities,and larger servicing range. The large grass-roots villages, which are hardly merged in a short term,should be renovated and consolidated and the key points should be given to infrastructure and environment. Besides, land renovation should proceed as per the general plan and new land use standard in order to adjust land structure in villages in a rational way,foster intensive land use,and advance village scale.In general,the key regional infrastructure and social services should be arranged and constructed as per a general plan.

New farm communities should be constructed in town planning areas and the villages in urban built-up areas should be transformed by reconstruction of old city. In construction of new cities, villages in urban lands should be moved to new residential areas stage by stage according to urban planning. Meanwhile, the administrative villages in town planning areas should be transformed into neighborhood committee as per plans to change traditional rural management model into urban community management,introduce urban lifestyle into villages, and to change self-constructed buildings to commercial residential buildings.

Analysis on successful planning cases-village allocation and renovation planning in Sanya

Sanya is the southernmost coastal city of Hainan Province, where rural areas are extensive, and rural population is high, so that agriculture plays a key role for economy. Nevertheless, farmland per capita keeps lower and economy develops not so well.Urban-rural dual economic structure becomes increasingly prominent.There are 4 districts in Sanya, including Jiyang, Tianya, Haitang and Yazhou, totaling 42 communities and 92 administrative villages[6]. In accordance with village evolution,Sanya divided village allocation and renovation into 4 models, namely, urban extension model, project-driving model,central village aggregating model and demolition and construction model.Specifically, both of urban extension model and project-driving model support village renovation and construction relying on land-based non-agricultural production;central village aggregating model gets profits for village construction from markets based on returned farmlands;the demolition and construction model gets profits on basis of rational ecological compensation and special funds from governments.Besides, all of the four models take farmer’s reemployment and income growth into consideration. For instance, urban extension model stimulates labors to get a job in cities or towns led by governments; central village aggregating model advances farmer’s reemployment and village collective economy by developing characteristic recreational tourism based on eco-civilized villages; the demolition and construction model,concerning public interests, promotes government-led reemployment to resolve the issue of social security system. The successful experience of Sanya provides references for village allocation and construction in underdeveloped areas.

Advancement of Village renovation and Planning

Formulating village renovation plans

Village renovation should be conducted under guidance of scientific planning[7].Specifically,on basis of village spatial planning and land use planning, it is important to formulate specific village transformation plans or village renovation plans, determine renovation projects and scales, and propose specific schemes according to local conditions in order to improve rural environment and living quality.What’s more,it is necessary to establish village/town regulatory agencies,and long-term scientific and highly-efficient mechanisms in terms of village management, monitoring and penalization, so that legal, economic and administrative means would be fully made use of in reinforcing the implementation and management of the plans. Once officially approved by legal procedures, the plans should be strictly implemented. In addition, adjustment or variations can be made on the plans according to legal procedures upon times.

Protection on building renovations and culture

On basis of formulated plans, it is crucial to adjust measures to local conditions on buildings,covering maintaining, renovation and demolition, in accordance with overall layout of the village plans. Besides, the renovation and transformation should make full use of local traditional building materials, to display local characters in shaping and color, and to coordinate unification and individual changes.Buildings should maintain and carry forward local building cultures to reflect local characters. For example, public buildings with values, such as traditional dwellings, ancestral halls, temples, and memorial archways, should be well preserved and the destructions be renovated as per original appearance. Besides, traditional streets in villages, with historical values, should be protected, in terms of road pavement, spatial scale, building shapes,and inner decorations.

Supporting facilities and improvements on infrastructure

It is an important part of building beautiful village and village renovation to construct and improve infrastructure and supporting facilities, which advances rural development. Specifically,to underscore the construction of rural infrastructure would promote urban infrastructure extending to rural areas,coordinate regional infrastructure construction, and establish an area coconstruction new model shared by urban and rural areas. Specifically, it is necessary to accelerate road construction in order to well arrange road network, speeds up electric power and telecommunications facilities, improves information services, and expedites water conservancy constructions, such as construction and renovation of small water conservancy projects, irrigation and drainage system,and comprehensive management of small watersheds, as well as constructions of locations for public lawns,rural gross-roots organizations and farmers’ activities, and public fire engine access. The key is to advance drinking water safety projects oriented by changing rural water, safe disposal of rural rubbish, such as arranging refuse collection point,and cleaners,in order to extend biogas comprehensive use projects, purify rural sewage, and to improve rural production and living environment[8].

Improving village administration

In order to reinforce management in village construction, it is necessary to avoid reconstruction in original addresses for the torn down dwellings within the renovation range, and new dwellings should be constructed by land replacement. As for dwellings out of the renovation range, shrinkageoriented management is adopted, and reconstruction, extension and new construction are forbidden. Villagers should be encouraged to move to central living areas and it is also allowed that villagers to move nearby of the consolidated living areas if conditions permit. Furthermore, to construct beautiful countryside should abide by the unified plan, design, construction and demands, in case of blind constructions. Besides, no villager shall in any way construct houses or clean old houses without authorization.Land intensive use should be insisted on to resolve excessive occupation on lands, and the farmlands required by new districts should be strictly controlled to returning the lands to farmlands based on adjusted settlements,natural villages and hollow villages.Finally,new building materials should be widely applied and extended according to the demands of energy-saving houses in order to lead farmers to construct economically affordable characteristic dwellings which are well-designed,and convenient.

The investment and financing mechanisms

It is difficult for farmers to construct and improve village or town infrastructure or public facilities and governments should play the role in terms of increasing public financial investments and supports. Specifically,it is necessary to rationally adjust income distribution structure and policies, to guarantee more supports should be given to rural areas and agriculture by tax policy and transferring payment from the exchequer, in order to diminish urban-rural gaps and developed and underdeveloped regions’ gaps in terms of social welfares and the rights of enjoying public facilities. What’ more, local governments should combine the project of helping farm households with building beautiful villages and the related departments should provide supports in labor, finance and material. Meanwhile, with government supports, the villages should take initiative to activate farmers in employment and improve the consciousness of protecting environment.

Conclusions

Village renovation is the only way which must be passed for advancing rural overall development in underdeveloped areas, which will enhance living environment and social civilization in underdeveloped rural areas, improve rural production conditions, and living quality, and change traditional production method and life style.However,affected by urban-rural dual economic structure, rural renovation proceeds slowly in underdeveloped areas.Currently, village allocation advancements provide opportunities for village renovation and beautiful village construction. Still, policy supports are cru-cial for village renovation. For example, government should take part in formulating village renovation plans,protection of building culture,improvement of infrastructure, reinforcing village administration, and establishing multichannel investment and financing mechanisms. In the context of urbanization and coordinated development of rural and urban areas, village renovation is a systematic project requiring further exploration in terms of how to coordinate the relationship between village renovation and village allocation, and how to resolve the problems in advancing rural areas in underdeveloped areas.

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