Hollow Village Governance Calls for a More Flexible Homestead Mechanism

Recently, some media reported that about 20,000 natural villages in Shandong are hollowing out, and the waste of rural construction land is very prominent. At present, the situation of "one household with multiple homesteads" exists in large numbers in China's rural areas. With the massive transfer of rural population, the "hollow village" phenomenon is becoming increasingly serious. On the other hand, China's industrialization and urbanization are accelerating, and construction land quotas are extremely scarce. The contradiction between the requirement for highly efficient and intensive land use and the large amount of idle homesteads shows that although homesteads are resources, they are still only dormant resources and need to be awakened.

Idle homesteads lack an exit mechanism. The current system prohibits homesteads from being traded on the market, and farmers can only obtain compensation through demolition. According to the law, homesteads can only be transferred within the village group collective. Villages where hollow villages appear are mostly villages with serious population outflow, and the transfer of homesteads within the village collective lacks a receiving party, leaving the market without vitality. Although idle homesteads generate no income, they also incur no cost, so in the absence of economic compensation, farmers have no incentive to exit existing homesteads.

Idle homesteads lack a main body to revitalize them. In terms of legal subject, only the village group collective has the qualification of collective land owner and can legitimately assume the responsibility of paid recovery of vacant and idle rural houses. However, it is difficult to achieve optimal allocation of land resources within the village group collective, so most village group collectives currently have not carried out corresponding work and have not assumed the responsibility and obligation to optimize idle homestead resources.

Idle homesteads lack revitalization funds. Land consolidation is a good way to resolve the "hollow village" problem, but the reclamation model of "reclaim first, occupy later" requires a large amount of sustained funding as support. When government financial resources are limited and reclamation quotas are not confirmed, used, or transferred, the government lacks enthusiasm for establishing a homestead exit system.

Under new historical conditions, it is necessary to stand at the height of coordinating urban and rural development integration, take safeguarding farmers' interests as the bottom line, take reform and innovation as the driving force, and follow a market-oriented approach to establish an effective rural homestead exit and revitalization mechanism, achieve a balance between the two resources of "capital" and "land" within a broader urban-rural scope, and promote highly efficient and intensive use of land resources.

Establish a sound urban-rural planning guidance mechanism. Based on regional urban-rural integration planning, formulate layout plans for rural residential areas, make overall arrangements for residential area layout, land use space, and service facilities, fully coordinate and connect village planning and land use planning, and in particular, ascertain the base number of the rural homestead idle rate, so as to design an overall plan for optimizing idle homesteads. In areas with good location conditions and developed economies, use idle homestead resources to coordinate the advancement of agricultural industrial parks, industrial parks, and commercial and residential areas, and accelerate the construction of small towns.

Establish a compensation mechanism for rural homestead exit. Integrate policies such as linked increase-decrease, homestead replacement, small town pilots, and land consolidation, and establish and improve a paid use system for homestead exit. When encouraging villagers in "hollow villages" to exit homesteads, full consideration should be given to differences in farmers' compensation needs, and multiple compensation methods such as money, land, and housing should be provided, giving farmers the right to choose independently. With ensuring that farmers' living standards do not decline as the minimum standard, safeguard measures should also be given to families with housing difficulties and low-income families. In addition, for farmers who voluntarily vacate homesteads, necessary social security insurance policy support such as elderly care and medical care should be provided.

Establish a reserve mechanism for idle rural homesteads. Carrying out reclamation and consolidation for an entire village creates great funding pressure, and coordination work is difficult, while the public's demands for interests are complex. Against the background of rapid rural population transfer, a rural homestead purchase and reserve system similar to the urban land purchase and reserve system should be established, accumulating little by little to produce scale effects.

Establish a trading mechanism for urban and rural construction land quotas. When implementing the "linked increase-decrease" system, in order to avoid the phenomenon of "occupying cultivated land and compensating with inferior land," the results of agricultural land grading and classification should be combined to convert cultivated land quality into standardized cultivated land quantity quotas. When homesteads are reclaimed as cultivated land, especially in villages with poorer location conditions and weaker economic strength, their economic value is more reflected in the construction land quotas of "linked increase-decrease." Only by opening up the channel for trading urban and rural construction land quotas can capital be attracted into the optimized use of idle homesteads. Therefore, it is necessary to build a policy system of "farmers exit homesteads - compensate homestead funds to farmers - exited homesteads become collective operational construction land - collective operational construction land enters the market," and realize the optimal allocation of idle homesteads in quota trading.