The Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, China's cabinet, is discussing a new housing demolition and relocation bill, Cao Kangtai, the office's director, revealed recently. The new regulation aims to improve the current urban housing management system and safeguard citizens' rights. It is now in the process of collecting opinions from different provinces and regions; some relocated people will be invited to express their views. According to Cao, an advanced draft will be open to public comment.

But he also pointed out three potential difficulties in the process of framing the new regulation. Firstly is the difficulty of defining "public interest". An enumeration method will be taken to define the public interest. Cao revealed that policy makers are inclined towards a narrow definition but some provinces and regions prefer to give a wider definition.

The second difficulty lies in the procedure of acquiring properties. The new regulation needs to make clear rules for how to execute the policy, such as which department should take responsibility to initiate a housing requisition.

Setting a standard level of compensation is another difficulty. Cao said the Legislative Affairs Office prefers to take the market price as a reference for compensating relocated citizens. "The amount of compensation should be enough for those relocated people to afford a new apartment," said Cao.

As this new regulation will be a supplementary to the "Property Law", whether it should involve non-public interest housing requisition or not is in discussion. Article 42 of the "Property Law" only provides principles for property requisition in the public interest. Now, alternative proposals have been made for non-public interest requisition. One is to draw up a new chapter in the new regulation to rule non-public interest requisition and compensation standard. Another option is to frame a separate legislation to regulate these kinds of matters.

As government requisition is an administrative legal relationship while the requisition not for the public interest is a civil legal relationship, discussions as to whether the two can be put into the same set of regulations are ongoing, according to Cao.

However, he didn't give the schedule for when the new regulation will be opened for public comment and when it will be officially carried out. Cao said his office will do their best to complete the task and make the ordinance come into existence as soon as possible.

Earlier this month, five scholars from Peking University suggested the National People's Congress to examine the current "Urban Housing Demolition Management Regulations". This aroused concern nationwide.