Tongzhou district, about a 40 minute drive from downtown Beijing, will experience a turning point in its development this year, after it witnessed progress in building "a subsidiary administrative center for Beijing" since work began in 2015, city planning experts said.
Tongzhou has seen initial successes in infrastructure development, including new water, electricity and road facilities, but 2017 will mark the turning point in which the district will further optimize planning for the new administrative center, Niu Fengrui, a research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Projects to improve locals' working and living conditions, as well as the district's policies on the functions of different regions and their relation to each other, will be clarified in 2017, Niu noted.
On Friday, senior Tongzhou officials vowed to work hard to manage the region in 2017, which was called "the year of transformation" by Yang Bing, the district Party chief.
'Tongzhou speed'
Though the purpose of moving some of Beijing's local administrative functions to suburban Tongzhou is to address congestion and pollution, the move does not mean the district is taking on the problems of downtown Beijing and it will actually provide the area with opportunities, experts said.
As Beijing sets its sights on having first-class urban construction and management in 2017, it requires Tongzhou to set high standards for planning and development, Ye Yumin, a public management professor at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
New technologies that are more efficient and environmentally friendly are being used in the construction and renovation of the region, such as Building Information Modeling, a 3D model-based process that enables professionals to design and construct buildings more efficiently.
The major buildings of Tongzhou's new administrative area, where the offices of Beijing's municipal government, top legislature, top political advisory body and city Party committee will be located by the end of 2017, were completed a mere seven months after construction work began in June 2016.
This efficiency was dubbed "Tongzhou speed" by Chen Hongda, chief engineer of the administrative area's construction office, who added that some teams finished entire floors of buildings within two and a half days, the China News Service reported Monday.
Meanwhile, only "clean" energy will be used in those buildings, with 40 percent of their needs being met by new and renewable energy sources.
Beijing also began work on five subway lines with a total length of 126 kilometers in December 2016, of which three new lines stretch to the east, through and around Tongzhou.
Optimized planning
Since Tongzhou's status was raised from an ordinary Beijing town to the capital's administrative subcenter, the district's planning and management have received financial and policy support, said Ye.
According to a work report released by the Beijing government in January, the capital will invest 4.25 billion yuan ($617 million) to support Tongzhou's development in 2017 alone.
From February 7 to March 1, Beijing's 23 government bodies, including the capital's transportation, environmental protection, education and civil affairs bureaus, will each send work teams with no less than five members to Tongzhou to help with the management of the region, the Beijing News reported on February 16.
The biggest challenge for Tongzhou in the coming years will be to provide educational, medical, environmental and cultural facilities that can compete with downtown areas, so that it will not simply be a "sleeping city" where people live but do not work or play, said Niu.
The construction of new Renmin University of China and the Capital Normal University High School campuses, and also branches of Beijing Jingshan School and the Beijing No.2 Middle School, will start in Tongzhou in the second half of 2017, the Beijing Daily reported on February 14.
Preparation to relocate part of Beijing Anzhen Hospital to Tongzhou will start at the end of 2017. The Capital Institute of Pediatrics and its affiliated hospital are also thinking of building a Tongzhou branch, the report added.
Meanwhile, the renovation and construction of eight parks in Tongzhou will finish in 2017. The Beijing Center for the Performing Arts and a new Tongzhou culture center will start construction in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
