Ministry designs 'snail houses' for rental scheme

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development recently published apartment design plans for public review on its website, which would serve as a guide for public rental housing projects nationwide, local media reported Tuesday.

In most plans, the floor area is designed to be around 40 square meters. The smallest design is a one-bedroom apartment, with a living room, kitchen and toilet, and the usable area is less than 23 square meters, news portal sina.com.cn reported. The review will be closed Sunday.

The local governments in Beijing and Guangdong are also going to promote similar plans for public rental housing, while 11,000 people have already won lucky draws and are expecting to move in, according to media reports.

Some media labeled the small apartments as "snail houses," referring to a controversial TV drama with the same title, which depicts the low-income subsistence of the people in a fictional city in 2009.

Public rental housing is a major part of the government's efforts to make housing affordable as well as stimulate the economy this year, experts said.

"The small designs are in line with the reality in most Chinese cities, which is, there is going to be an ever increasing amount of people rushing into the cities from the countryside, while the land area available for housing development is going to shrink," said Yin Bocheng, director of the Real Estate Research Center of Fudan University in Shanghai.

"If the apartment is big and the rent is not substantially lower than that for the commercial ones in the cities, then the low-income people will not be able to afford it," Yin said.

Gordon Orr, a director at McKinsey Shanghai, predicted earlier this month that the real estate sector would stagnate this year, but Beijing will continue to prioritize the affordable housing in an attempt to prevent a hard landing in the construction sector.

"Smaller but well-designed apartments will make housing more affordable for more people. A larger group of people who have a place to live can further stimulate the economy, including more purchases of furniture and home appliances," Yin noted.