Chinese Highway Home Demolished
By Lucas on Dec 04, 2012
Hey, remember that house in Wenling, China that had the highway built around it? We posted about it just last week. Well, last Saturday, it was demolished.
There is no doubt that the city is experiencing some financial hardship, but it seems odd that the mayor and councillors would look to home buyers to help with that issue. If the city is lacking the proper funding to rebuild and add new infrastructure, infrastructure that everyone uses, it would make more sense for everyone in the region to pay for the services, not just new home owners.
How much was offered to him? Just 220,000 yuan, or just over $35,000. That’s only about a third of what Baogen spent building his home!
After a few years of resisting, Baogen finally gave in to an offer of 260,000 yuan ($41,000) – still not even half of what his home is worth.
Most blog posts and online news sites state that Baogen accepted the offer voluntarily because he and his wife were tired of the local media coverage the situation was attracting. We’re sure living in the middle of a new highway also contributed to the acceptance of such a measly offer.
It seems kind of odd that Baogen would concede for an extra $6,000 after a four-year fight. The elderly couple clearly didn’t have an option.
We didn’t know any of the numbers or offers involved in this situation when we first discussed the highway home, but now that we see that the Baogens were getting low-balled, we agree that they had reason to stick around a little longer than expected.
So, we’ll ask again: how do you think this would play out in Canada? What if someone stood in the way of a condo development in this fashion?
