Open residential roads by law

(China Daily) Updated: 2016-02-24 07:25

Real estate investment growth fell to 2 percent in the first 10 months of this year, acting as a drag on GDP growth.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Whether walled residential areas should have their walls torn down has sparked debate, after the State Council, China's Cabinet, issued a document on Sunday stating walled residential areas will not be constructed in the future and those that have walls will gradually have them removed so the roads are open to public traffic.

Undoubtedly, such an idea is meant to ease the increasingly serious traffic congestion in most cities by incorporating all roads and alleyways into a city's road network.

Yet for quite a number of walled residential areas, it is a matter of whether it is legal or not for the government to tear down their walls and open their roads to public traffic.

For those walled neighborhoods, where the roads do not belong to the homeowners, there should be no problem if governments have the walls demolished and make their roads available for public use.

But for those walled residential communities, where residents have paid not only for the homes they reside in but also the other facilities, such as gardens and roads within the area, their rights to all the properties within the walled area is protected by the Property Right Law, which has explicit specifications on the issue.

Obviously, for the latter type of walled residential areas, the government will have to overcome the legal obstacles.

It is imperative and meaningful that governments at all levels govern according to the law and the Constitution. On this particular issue, governments should be aware that administrative power should not ride roughshod over the law.

The government has its own role to play if the opening of such roads is essential to the smooth flow of traffic for a specific part of a city. But they should employ legal means for the purpose, as this is the only correct approach.