Housing issues are closely related to the vital interests of thousands of households and have a bearing on the overall economic and social development.
With the phased changes in urbanization, people’s pursuit of housing has shifted from simply having a place to live to pursuing higher-quality housing that meets better living standards.
The “15th Five-Year Plan” proposals put forward the goal of building safe, comfortable, green, and smart “high-quality houses”, and implementing projects to improve housing quality and property service standards. The Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Promoting High-Quality Urban Development calls for upgrading the entire chain of housing design, construction, maintenance, and services.
What defines a “high-quality house”?
The answer lies in systematic policies: a high-quality house cannot do without a good living environment, which in turn relies on excellent services, and all of this is based on the improvement of the city’s overall functions. High-quality houses, residential complexes, communities, and urban areas are closely linked, together building a solid foundation for a better life.
In recent years, Foshan has taken the construction of “high-quality houses” as the core starting point for building a new real estate development model and promoting high-quality urban development. It has empowered residential quality with green and smart technologies, revitalized old spaces through urban renewal, upgraded property services with refined governance, and improved urban functions through overall regional coordination, striving to write a vivid chapter of “Livable Foshan”.
Quality Upgrade: From “Having a House to Live In” to “Living in a High-Quality House”
Building “high-quality houses” is a key task deployed by the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and an inevitable choice to meet the needs of the people. This year’s Government Work Report of the State Council clearly states that efforts should be made to adapt to the people’s demand for high-quality housing, improve standards and specifications, and promote the construction of safe, comfortable, green, and smart “high-quality houses”. The Central Urban Work Conference, held again after a decade, further put forward clear requirements for building “high-quality houses” around the goal of constructing a modern people-centered city.
Foshan has earnestly implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, adhering to the principle of dual-track advancement. On one hand, it has raised the quality standards for newly-built residential buildings, connected supply and demand through platforms such as the “2025 Foshan High-Quality Housing Festival”, and effectively transformed stock and incremental policies to help residents choose quality houses and settle down. On the other hand, it has promoted the organic renewal of existing old houses, improving functional supporting facilities and optimizing living environments to enable residential buildings of different eras to adapt to the modern pace of life.
In terms of new housing construction, Foshan has actively explored high-quality residential models and expanded multi-level living scenarios. Some pilot projects have integrated natural ecology with high-rise buildings through vertical greening, sky courtyards, and open shared space designs. Relevant high-quality projects have made collective appearances at the “Housing Festival”, not only accurately meeting residents’ demand for quality living but also continuously activating market vitality.
Green is the distinctive background color of “high-quality houses”. Foshan has vigorously promoted green buildings, green building materials, prefabricated buildings, and prefabricated decoration, reducing energy consumption and pollution from the source, creating energy-saving and environmentally friendly living spaces, and improving construction efficiency and quality while building a healthy and comfortable living environment.
Intelligence has injected soul into “high-quality houses”. Foshan has integrated intelligent construction and smart home R&D into the entire construction process, promoting the coordinated development of the residential industry and the local pan-home furnishing industry, forming a positive cycle of mutual promotion and symbiosis between “high-quality houses” and “high-quality industries”. Today, in newly-built fully decorated residential buildings, fiber-optic broadband access has become standard, and smart gateways, smart door locks, and whole-house intelligent control systems are widely used, making smart living within easy reach.
Faced with a large number of existing old houses, Foshan has adopted a model of “preserving, renovating, and demolishing as appropriate”. Through comprehensive measures such as building reinforcement, facility improvement, and environmental renovation, old neighborhoods have been revitalized while retaining urban memories, allowing elderly residents to enjoy high-quality living conditions without leaving their hometowns, achieving a warm transformation from “old houses” to “high-quality houses”.
Community Renovation: From “Having a Place to Settle” to “Living with Warmth”
A house is never an isolated building but a community unit that carries life and emotions. Foshan has continued to make efforts in building “high-quality residential complexes”, allowing happiness to flow among neighbors in streets and alleys.
Walking into Xinhua Jingyuan in Shiwan Town Street, Chancheng District, this nearly 20-year-old residential complex has experienced “reverse growth”. Once narrow and congested roads have become flat and spacious, mottled walls have been repainted, and idle corners have been transformed into pocket parks, improving both the appearance and internal facilities. Not far away, Huijing Community has integrated the concept of sponge cities into its renovation; facilities such as sunken green spaces, rainwater and sewage pipe networks, and permeable pavements allow the community to “breathe freely” even on rainy days.
The renovation of these two communities is a true reflection of the transformation of old urban residential complexes in Foshan. According to relevant responsible persons from the Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, since the launch of the old urban residential complex renovation project in 2019, 965 old urban residential complexes have started renovation in the city, benefiting about 230,000 households with a completion rate of approximately 98%. Currently, through a three-tier renovation system of “basic-level to ensure livability, improvement-level to supplement functions, and enhancement-level to enrich connotations”, Foshan is building happy homes that are “livable, resilient, and smart”.
Foshan’s practices have not stopped at the “internal renovation” of residential complexes. In recent years, Foshan has coordinated the renovation of old residential complexes, urban villages and dilapidated houses, the construction of complete communities and future communities, and the exploration of local historical and cultural values with the construction of “high-quality houses”.
In October this year, the Provisions on Strengthening the Protection of Historical and Cultural Features in the Renovation of Urban Villages in Foshan (Trial) was officially issued, providing clear guidelines for Foshan to preserve historical context in the process of urbanization. In advancing the renovation of urban villages, Foshan has not only focused on optimizing urban structure, improving functions, and enhancing quality but also adhered to the bottom line of protecting historical context, properly handling the relationship between tradition and modernity, inheritance and development, so that urban renewal and cultural continuity complement each other.
Service Upgrade: From “Good Management” to “Dynamic Governance”
The value of “high-quality houses” and “high-quality residential complexes” needs to be activated and maintained through “high-quality services”. In recent years, Foshan has gradually built a property management system with local characteristics and continuously polished the “Beautiful Home” brand.
Recently, the “Qianjia Wanshi” platform built by the Foshan Real Estate Association has taken the lead in piloting operation at Greenland Fragrant Tree Garden in Lishui, Nanhai. Through this platform, owners can clearly understand every link of property services just like checking online shopping logistics information, and pay fees only after confirming that services have been fulfilled.
This model has completely broken the information barrier of traditional property charging models and reconstructed the trust bond between owners and property enterprises. “I used to not know where the property fees went, and I felt uncertain when paying,” said Ms. Su, a resident, voicing the feelings of many people. Today, “paying fees with more peace of mind” has become a common feeling among more and more residents.
This is a microcosm of Foshan’s construction of a modern property management service system. To consolidate the institutional foundation for “high-quality services”, Foshan has issued the Measures for the Administration of Special Maintenance Funds for Residential Buildings in Foshan, solving the problem of fund management and ensuring that the “pension” for residential buildings is well-managed and transparently used.
To address the problem of aging elevators in old residential complexes, Foshan has actively sought support from ultra-long-term special treasury bonds to reduce the burden on residents. Up to now, 1,121 elevators in 240 residential complexes in the city have been approved for 168 million yuan in treasury bond funds. The renewal of old elevators has solved the livelihood pain point of “difficulty going up and down stairs” and reflected Foshan’s governance wisdom of empowering people’s well-being through policies.
On the basis of improving property services, Foshan has extended services to all fields of community governance. In May this year, Foshan launched a special property service improvement campaign, adopting an open attitude towards rectification, establishing a “problem list + responsibility list” working mechanism, focusing on prominent issues such as substandard property services and overdue service of old elevators, and implementing closed-loop management for 81 problematic residential complexes, attracting widespread social attention.
To address the potential safety hazards of electric bicycle parking and charging, 7,675 centralized parking spots have been built in 2,078 residential communities across the city, equipped with about 155,000 charging ports and 2,990 shared charging cabinets, which can meet the needs of 520,000 electric bicycles, building a solid safety defense line from the source.
In addition, Foshan has organized the “Strengthen Property Management and Build a Beautiful Home Together” activity, establishing a number of model “Beautiful Home” residential complexes with excellent services, standardized management, and livable environments, and gradually building a property management framework with Foshan characteristics featuring government supervision, owner decision-making, market operation, and multi-party supervision.
Overall Regional Quality Improvement: From “Good Residence” to “Good City”
“High-quality houses” are rooted in “high-quality residential complexes”, which gather to form “high-quality communities”, and the growth and connection of countless “high-quality communities” ultimately define the pattern and warmth of a “high-quality urban area”.
Based on the overall situation of high-quality urban development, Foshan has taken the construction of “high-quality urban areas” as the guide, coordinated urban style shaping, functional upgrading, and the coordinated development of towns and streets, transforming the “bonsai” of community governance into the “scenery” of urban livability, and providing macro support for the construction of the “Four High-Quality” (high-quality houses, complexes, communities, and urban areas).
Building “high-quality urban areas” is based on facilities and style. Foshan has actively promoted the construction of new urban infrastructure, improved urban style management simultaneously, and created an urban image that combines regional characteristics with contemporary fashion. This year, all 21 planned renovation projects for old urban residential complexes in the city have fully started, and pilot projects for future community construction have been selected and recommended to explore new paths for community governance and service upgrading.
The city’s “internal infrastructure” projects have been consolidated simultaneously. A total of 118 kilometers of natural gas pipelines have been newly built throughout the year, adding 110,000 new pipeline natural gas users, and the penetration rate of pipeline natural gas has reached 74.5%.
Building “high-quality urban areas” lies in coordination and characteristics. In line with the deployment of the pilot zone around the two rivers, Foshan has, on the basis of consolidating the results of cultivating model towns in the early stage of the “Hundred Counties, Thousand Towns, Ten Thousand Villages” project, actively promoted the selection and cultivation of a new batch of model towns. Among them, towns such as Shishan, Beijiao, and Nanzhuang are carrying out planning and construction pilots in accordance with small city standards, accelerating the leap from a town form to a mature urban form.
A responsible person from the Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban-Rural Development stated that next, adhering to the principles of “improving people’s livelihood, strengthening regional development, and setting benchmarks”, and taking the exploration of sustainable urban renewal models and policies as the starting point, Foshan will focus on removing policy bottlenecks in independent renewal and the renovation of existing buildings, solving the problem of unbalanced input and output in fields such as old residential complex renovation and community construction, intensify the renovation of urban villages and dilapidated houses, and steadily build complete communities and future communities, injecting lasting impetus into the construction of “high-quality urban areas”.
There are no trivial matters concerning people’s livelihood; every detail is related to people’s feelings. Foshan has always taken the people’s yearning for a better life as its starting point and goal. Through the construction of the “Four High-Quality”, it has ensured that houses have quality, residential complexes have warmth, communities have vitality, and urban areas have energy levels, effectively supporting the people’s well-being of thousands of households.
Standing at a new starting point, we look forward to Foshan continuing to take the construction of the “Four High-Quality” as the core starting point, accelerating the construction of a new real estate development model, speeding up the creation of an international and modern metropolis suitable for living, working, and traveling, and making “Livable Foshan” a warmer and more shining urban brand.
