Recently, Xiangcheng District in Zhangzhou launched its 2025 old residential community renovation project, which will renovate 53 communities with a total construction area of approximately 2.18 million square meters. Currently, 39 communities have entered construction in phases.

During a recent inspection of the old community renovation work, Shi Zhenqi, Secretary of Xiangcheng District Party Committee, stated that old community renovation connects public welfare on one end and urban development on the other, making it an important livelihood project and public satisfaction initiative. All relevant departments must strengthen work responsibilities, further optimize design plans, refine task lists, schedule timelines in reverse order, scientifically allocate resources, seize the construction "golden period," accelerate construction progress, and efficiently advance various renovation projects to ensure early completion and effectiveness of old community renovation projects.

In recent years, Xiangcheng District has continuously promoted old community renovation and urban renewal, listing old community renovation as a public service project for consecutive years. A total of 318 communities have been renovated with a cumulative investment of approximately 1.74 billion yuan, benefiting 75,000 households, ranking first in the city in terms of renovation scale.

Urban renewal has given these urban neighborhoods a "second breath," transforming the district's appearance and upgrading living quality. Many communities have undergone a magnificent transformation from "having shelter" to "having quality housing," with residents' happiness increasing daily, painting a warm picture of peaceful and prosperous living.

**Focusing on Details to Enhance Residents' Happiness**

Despite the passing of the hottest summer days, the weather remains sultry. At renovation sites of old communities such as Oriental Pearl, Xinrong Jiayuan, and Shangri-La in Xiangcheng District, excavators and dump trucks are busy with construction while over a dozen workers are occupied with their tasks in an orderly manner.

"This year, 53 old communities will be renovated, and 39 communities have already started construction," said Wang Mingzi, project manager for Xiangcheng old community renovation at Provincial Seventh Construction Group. Following the renovation concept of "one community, one plan," the construction content is detailed and diverse, including over 20 categories such as stormwater-sewage separation, weak current line organization, sponge city transformation, parking lot expansion, wall renovation, fire safety upgrades, landscaping improvements, and barrier-free facility installation, truly making "high aesthetics" and "high comfort" tangible daily experiences for residents.

Old community renovation has become very familiar to Xiangcheng residents. As Zhangzhou's main urban area, Xiangcheng has a large inventory of old communities. Ten years ago, relevant departments conducted a survey revealing approximately 260 communities built before the end of 1995, with some communities dating back to the 1980s.

"Due to small areas and historical debts, these communities lack property management companies or have been gradually eliminated from the property market, simultaneously becoming communities without property management, creating shortcomings in urban governance," said Wang Mian, Director of Xiangcheng District Housing and Construction Bureau.

Hunei New Village, located in the western area of Xiangcheng District, Zhangzhou, was built in 1986 with 17 brick-concrete residential buildings, making it one of the earliest communities in the urban area. Without property management and continued investment, Hunei New Village suffered from aging buildings, damaged roads, blocked drainage ditches that flooded during rain, aging sewage pipes and septic tanks that occasionally overflowed, and lack of management constraints that led some residents to occupy public areas with illegal structures or random storage, making it a truly "dirty, messy, and poor community."

"As living standards improve, residents have higher requirements for living environments, making these communities a challenge that urban renewal must address," Wang Mian stated. For a long time, many old communities in Zhangzhou's urban area have lacked property management, easily generating problems such as poor public environmental hygiene, neighborhood conflicts, and security chaos, affecting community stability and social harmony.

Since 2018, city and district governments have included old community renovation in public service projects, learning from experiences in Fuzhou, Xiamen, and other cities to comprehensively launch remediation actions.

"Without experience initially, we started with 8 old community renovations that year," Wang Mian said. The renovation of 8 communities without property management - including Minzhu Li New Village, Qiao'an Xinhua Garden, Water Conservancy New Village, Zhuwai New Village South District, Qianfeng New Village, Ruide Garden Community, Jinyuan New Village, and Libin Community - involved 82 buildings and 2,463 households with a total investment of 26.95 million yuan.

The renovation focused on underground pipelines for water supply, rainwater, sewage, and gas, as well as inter-district roads and lighting equipment, ensuring communities first meet standards of "water flow, level roads, and bright lights." When conditions permitted, landscape improvements were achieved through greening, parking space planning, and grass brick paving.

According to construction manager Wang Mingzi, renovation content includes septic tank cleaning and repair; rainwater and sewage network re-laying; road and landscaping re-planning; motor vehicle and non-motor vehicle parking space reconfiguration; street light upgrades; and water supply network and secondary water supply facility renovation.

After these community renovations succeeded and gained public recognition, the renovation projects entered a "fast track": 13 communities were completed in 2019; 40 in 2020; 38 in 2021; 104 in 2022; 67 in 2023; and 48 in 2024. The district's appearance has been completely renewed, and living experiences significantly improved.

**High-Level Promotion with Resident Participation**

Old community renovation is not only a construction project but also a systematic social governance challenge. In recent years, Zhangzhou's Party Committee and municipal government have attached great importance to promoting old community renovation work, issuing documents such as the "Zhangzhou Old Community Renovation Implementation Plan" and "Zhangzhou Old Community Renovation Work Joint Conference System," forming a hierarchical work structure of "municipal coordination, county implementation, street participation, and community cooperation."

Approval efficiency was once a bottleneck constraining renovation progress. In 2019, Zhangzhou issued the "Zhangzhou Special Category Engineering Construction Management Interim Measures," becoming the nation's first specialized policy for "urban double repair" (ecological restoration and urban repair) and urban renewal projects, breaking approval bottlenecks at the institutional level.

Before the management measures were introduced, old community renovation projects took nearly 10 months from initiation to site entry. After applying the new policy in 2020, rapid joint review of plans enabled orderly on-site progress. For example, the Qianfeng Market West Side Road Improvement Project, previously constrained by preliminary work, immediately applied the management measures after their introduction, taking only 37 days from project approval to construction start.

**Integrated Construction and Management for Post-Renovation Continuity**

Renovation is temporary, but management is long-term. With renewed community appearances, how can they avoid returning to "dirty, messy, and poor" conditions? Without property takeover, how can cleanliness and order be maintained? These are common concerns among many residents.

"Some old community residents lack collective management awareness, and habits of paying for services are difficult to change in the short term. Combined with insufficient public space in communities, resulting in relatively limited public revenue, property service companies are unwilling to enter, making communities more prone to becoming dirty, messy, and poor," said Zhang Xiaofeng, Party Committee Member and Deputy General Manager of Zhangzhou Xiangjiang Property Service Co., Ltd.

In 2020, Xiangcheng began exploring solutions by establishing the state-owned non-profit property enterprise "Xiangjiang Property," actively creating the "Red Property Urban Butler" Party building brand to provide bottom-line services specifically for renovated communities without property management, establishing long-term management mechanisms and effectively connecting community governance nerve endings.

In fact, after many communities were renovated, some implemented owner self-governance with self-management, such as Dajia Mingmen and Heping Li Community Phase III, which are well-managed. Others established owners' committees that select property companies from society for management, initially establishing long-term mechanisms.

The state-owned non-profit property enterprise "Xiangjiang Property" mainly serves as a safety net. "Not targeting profit, entering communities with the city's lowest property management fees to ensure renovated communities maintain constant freshness and prevent regression to dirty, messy, and poor conditions," Zhang Xiaofeng said. The company attempts a "service first, charge later" model - first letting residents see service effectiveness, then voluntarily paying property fees, gradually cultivating payment habits to achieve positive cycles.

In April 2020, People's New Village became the first community where Xiangjiang Property entered, subsequently expanding to Gantang Palace New Village, Jinyuan New Village, Huayuan Apartment, and other communities. They extensively listen to owners' voices, encourage community residents to participate in community management, invite residents to participate in service quality evaluations, improve grassroots governance refinement levels, and win residents' praise.

"Currently, Xiangjiang Property Company manages over 100 renovated old communities," Zhang Xiaofeng said. Additionally, addressing the high elderly population in old communities, Xiangjiang Property launched the "ZhuXiaoFu" housekeeping service platform in March 2023, providing eight categories of services including organization and moving, appliance repair, pipe unclogging, and childcare services. Through professional team training and smooth service information channels, they truly connect the "last kilometer" of community convenience services.

Currently, Xiangcheng District is using red property as a lever, based on residents' needs, innovating linkage mechanisms, consolidating and improving good experiences and practices, committed to creating diverse, comprehensive, and three-dimensional convenient service "15-minute living circles," striving to provide more precise and refined services for residents and promoting community transformation from "old communities" to "happy communities."