Beijing to crack down on bizarre rooftop villas
Neighbours irked as homes built atop mall, apartment building
BEIJING — A medicine mogul spent six years building his own private mountain peak and luxury villa atop a highrise apartment block in China’s capital, earning the unofficial title of “most outrageous illegal structure.” Now, authorities are giving him 15 days to tear it down.
The craggy complex of rooms, rocks, trees and bushes looming over the 26-storey building looks like something built into a seaside cliff, and has become the latest symbol of disregard for the law among the rich as well as the rampant practice of building illegal additions.
Angry neighbours say they’ve complained for years that the unauthorized, 800-squaremetre mansion and its landscaping was damaging the building’s structural integrity and pipe system, but that local authorities failed to take action. They’ve also complained about loud, late-night parties.
“They’ve been renovating for years. They normally do it at night,” said a resident on the building’s 25th floor, who added that any attempts to reason with the owner were met with indifference. “He was very arrogant,” said the neighbour, who declined to give his name to avoid repercussions.
The villa’s owner has been identified as the head of a traditional Chinese medicine business and former member of the district’s political advisory body who resides on the building’s 26th floor. Contacted by Beijing Times newspaper, the man said he would comply with the district’s orders, and that the structure was “just an ornamental garden.”
Authorities took action only after photos of the villa were splashed across Chinese media on Monday, along with the headline “Beijing’s most outrageous illegal structure.”
The case has resonance among ordinary Chinese who regularly see the rich and politically connected receive special treatment. Expensive vehicles lacking licence plates are a common sight, while luxury housing complexes that surround Beijing and other cities are often built on land appropriated from farmers with little compensation.
China’s leader Xi Jinping has vowed to crack down on official corruption, and Beijing itself launched a campaign earlier this year to demolish illegal structures, although the results remain unclear.
A developer in the central city of Hengyang recently got into hot water over an illegally built complex of 25 villas on top of a shopping centre. He later won permission to keep the villas intact as long as they weren’t sold to others.
While all land in China technically belongs to the state — with homebuyers given leases — rules are often vague.
A city in Sichuan province recently caused a stir when it was discovered it had cut land leases from the normal 70 years to just 40 years.
Officials stated online that the change was legal, and “Who knows if we’ll still be in this world in 40 years. Don’t think too long-term.”