Homestead Land Exit May Trigger Land Disputes with Farmers; Multiple Provinces and Regions Explore New Models
The state's exploration of the homestead land exit mechanism will be comprehensively accelerated. The reporter has just learned that in the national comprehensive pilot program for new urbanization, which is about to be officially launched, the pilot areas will establish the confirmation, registration and certification of homestead land rights, reform and improve the rural homestead land system, and on the basis of revising the rural homestead land use standards and the per capita construction land vacancy standards for rural residential areas, explore the rights of homestead land use right holders over the possession, use, income and disposal of homestead land.
In fact, at present, many provinces and regions including Anhui, Zhejiang, Ningxia, Hunan and Sichuan have already carried out explorations of the homestead land exit mechanism to varying degrees.
Anhui Province recently proposed the establishment of a compensation and incentive mechanism for homestead land exit throughout the province. According to the implementation plan requirements of the "Guiding Opinions of the People's Government of Anhui Province on Deepening the Demonstration Pilot Work of Comprehensive Rural Reform" obtained by the reporter from the Anhui Department of Land and Resources, first, implement the filing and verification system for the occupation of agricultural land by homestead land, and protect the homestead land rights of rural villagers; second, explore and establish an incentive mechanism for homestead land exit. If rural villagers voluntarily withdraw from homestead land for which they have obtained the right to use according to law, the rural collective economic organization shall compensate them or the government shall reward them, and economic or other means shall be adopted to provide incentives; third, explore the homestead land transfer system, allowing rural villagers to use the homestead land of other rural collective economic organizations through transfer.
Zhejiang Province has clearly stated that it will draw on Chongqing's “land ticket” system, quantify homestead land use rights into “homestead land rights tickets,” and realize the free and paid exit of farmers' homestead land through rights ticket trading and transfer, thereby making farmers' housing property rights and interests more visible. At the same time, it will gradually explore allowing eligible homestead land and rural houses to break through the boundaries of village-level collective economic organizations for exchange, transfer, inheritance and shareholding, on the premise of not changing the collective ownership nature of homestead land.
Although the industry believes that establishing and improving the homestead land exit mechanism can use land more effectively, some experts also point out that how to implement strict use control over the land after exit is very critical. Otherwise, when homestead land exit is promoted nationwide, it is entirely possible that it will follow the old path of previous farmland requisition, giving rise to a series of chaotic phenomena such as non-agriculturalization and infringement of farmers' rights and interests.
Industry insiders say that in recent years, as urbanization has accelerated, the problem of idle rural homestead land has become increasingly prominent. According to statistics, at present 10% to 20% of China's rural homestead land is idle, and in some areas the idle rate is even as high as 30%. On the one hand, idle rural homestead land causes serious waste of land resources; on the other hand, urbanization faces rigid constraints on land resources. How to establish and improve the homestead land exit mechanism, release the value of rural construction land, safeguard farmers' land rights and interests, and ease the pressure on urban construction land is an important topic urgently requiring study and resolution in land and resources management.
It is understood that this comprehensive urbanization pilot program will accelerate the rural cadastral survey, comprehensively promote the registration and certification of rural homestead land use rights, and include farmers' houses within the scope of confirmation, registration and certification. Homestead land and rural houses will be included in the national unified real estate registration system, and a unified real estate registration system will be established and implemented first.
In addition, the control standards for rural homestead land use and the per capita construction land control standards for rural residential areas will be revised. The powers and realization forms and paths of collective land ownership over homestead land will be explored. The powers of homestead land use right holders over the possession, use, income and disposal of homestead land will be explored and implemented, granting homestead land use right holders more rights and interests on the premise of safeguarding the rights and interests of collective land owners.
Against this background, incentive and restraint mechanisms will be established, and on the premise of fully respecting farmers' wishes, a system of paid use and paid exit of homestead land will be explored, as will methods for handling homestead land that exceeds standards. On the premise of adhering to the unchanged collective ownership nature of rural homestead land, the trading subjects, trading scope and trading methods of idle rural homestead land will be explored. A mechanism for distributing land returns in the paid use and exit of homestead land will be established. Methods for transferring the possession right and use right of homestead land in the mortgage guarantee transfer of rural houses will be explored.
Wen Hui, director of the Planning Research Department of the City and Small and Medium-Sized Town Reform and Development Center of the National Development and Reform Commission, told the reporter that against the backdrop of China's rapid economic development, due to the lack of planning and irregular management, land use efficiency is poor, and rural collective land is even worse. This causes some land to lie idle, thereby threatening the red line for cultivated land. “Only by accelerating land system reform can we solve the current phenomena of high land prices caused by the lack of urban construction land and the inability of idle and abandoned rural collective land to obtain its due value.”
It is worth noting that homestead land exit may lead to problems such as disputes with farmers over land and “displaced people.” In response, Wen Hui pointed out that to achieve relatively good results in homestead land exit, it must be carried out on the premise of determining the use of the land after recovery and ensuring the later implementation of policy measures.
Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that at present the pilots on homestead land exit all share one characteristic: the government can fulfill its early promises to farmers, but because funds later fail to arrive and supporting policies are incomplete, many farmers feel that distribution is unfair, and the implementation of policies is not optimistic.
In this regard, Li Guoxiang particularly pointed out that through the compensation mechanism for homestead land exit, the economic burden on farmers after entering cities and towns can be reduced, and new urbanization can be better advanced. But at the same time, attention should be paid to giving priority to agriculture in the use of exited homestead land, focusing mainly on reclamation, and only after supplementing the agricultural land targets should some non-agricultural construction be appropriately carried out. How to implement strict use control over the land after exit is very critical. Otherwise, when homestead land exit is promoted nationwide, it is entirely possible that it will follow the old path of previous farmland requisition, giving rise to a series of chaotic phenomena such as non-agriculturalization and infringement of farmers' rights and interests.