In 2021, in response to a document from the State Council, in Tongzhou, Beijing, the renovation of the old neighborhoods was very different from the others. The renovation of these neighborhoods was not only decided by the government, evaluation experts, design companies and supervisory companies, but the residents formed organizations, carried out several consultation meetings and were very deeply involved in the design proposals throughout, and the residents were very active in participating together in all aspects, thus influencing the neighborhood. The transformation achieved the results that the residents wanted. This was the first time in Tongzhou that a consensus meeting had been implemented in the district. The Tongzhou district coffers had provided significant funding for this neighborhood renovation. And from July 2022, the People's Government of Tongzhou District in Beijing issued an official announcement that organizations such as owners' meetings and residents' committees needed to be set up in the transformed district to ensure that residents were consulted [3]. Since then, the role of residents' organizations has grown and been affirmed.In the reconstruction plan of 34 old residential areas in Tongzhou District, Beijing, we take the Guoyuan community in the first bid section as a case study. Covering an area of approximately 200,000 square meters, the Guoyuan area extends from Guangqu Road East in the south to the Jingqin railway line in the north, and from Xinhua South Road in the east to the Dafuyuan district in the west, involving six back streets and 17 alleys, with three blocks of 6,000 square metres of floor space expected to be renovated.[4]

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

Three notable entities were involved in the organization of this initiative. Firstly, the reconstruction work concerning this initiative was undertaken entirely under the leadership of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Construction[5]. The specific arrangement, implementation and supervision of this project were handled by the Major Project Coordination Service Center of Tongzhou District. Besides, the construction was financed by government investment (local). They provided a reconstruction budget of 25,880,977RMB in total(roughly 3,023,478£)[6]. Secondly, the main work of rebuilding old urban residential areas was done by China Construction First Bureau Group Third Construction Co., Ltd. Thirdly, the local community centers and neighbourhood council, associated with the Major Project Coordination Service Center of Tongzhou District, set up some workshops and a Wechat group which informed residents about the progress of the project at regular intervals and get residents involved in the whole reconstruction process.

In each consensus meeting, the residents of the neighborhood who participated in the meeting were able to make thoughtful judgments and create a more favorable atmosphere for discussion. First, each meeting was chaired by the coordinator, who was mainly a member of the neighborhood committee. He was able to objectively and impartially communicate the people's demands to the heads of the construction and design companies clearly each time. In addition, when there was a disagreement between the two sides, he was able to resolve the conflict in a timely manner. Secondly, during the meeting, the expert, the residents' representative, the neighborhood committee, the construction company and the design company all listened to each other well, took each other's questions seriously, and put themselves in each other's shoes. In addition, the residents' representatives received guidance from the experts on reconstruction, the construction company presented some building materials, and the experts explained the efficacy of the materials and the details of the design plans to the residents' representatives. Finally, the residents provided many requests during the meeting, and the design company designed several redevelopment plans based on the plans and the residents' proposals[7]. 

Participant Recruitment and Selection

In order to benefit all residents, this initiative is open to all. On the one hand, community staff set up a WeChat group where the last progress was uploaded at any time. This approach requires participants to access the internet, which could make it difficult for community members, especially the elderly, who lack knowledge or activity with technology to access these resources. Considering this, the neighborhood committee regularly released various information on the board and set up workshops where representatives of the committee explained the entire process of reconstruction to residents many times. In addition, Major Project Coordination Service Center of Tongzhou District published news of the tender and winning bids, as well as design plans of reconstruction and other information to the official website of the Beijing government, which could be accessible by residents at any time.

The community council issued a letter of intent online and offline. Twenty resident representatives were randomly selected by staff. A panel of these 20 resident representatives, community committee members and experts was formed. The random sampling was done mainly by age group: 4 from the 20th generation, 4 from the 30th generation, 4 from the 40th generation, 4 from the 50th generation and 4 from the 60th generation. Almost the entire age group of the neighborhood residents was covered. The random sampling by age was done mainly because it was necessary to collect the ideas of people in each age group and converge them together, considering that different age groups have different demands on the neighborhood reconstruction work. These 20 residents, members of the community committee and the experts set up a panel. From the initial tender-setting meeting, design to the final stage of construction, they held several meetings with representatives of the construction company, in which matters related to the reconstruction were discussed and debated.

Several experts were also invited throughout the process. They gave advice and guidance to the residents, shared detailed information about various construction companies with the residents during the initial tender-setting meeting, gave a lot of design guidance to the residents during the design process and tried to solve their problems, and they supervised construction with the residents during the final construction process, which were directly involved in the whole process of rebuilding.

The expenses for the consensus meeting held in this case were all paid by the government. The presenter is a government-appointed civil servant whose base salary is paid monthly by the state treasury. All expenses related to official duties in the participation of the Guoyuan community are reported to their respective units through invoice receipts, which are reviewed and reimbursed by the accountant. Participant experts and design teams were hired at the expense of the organizing unit, the Tongzhou District Major Project Coordination Service Center, and funded by the government through the Tongzhou Old Neighborhood Improvement Program. Residents and neighborhood committee staff who participated in the offline meetings received meal allowance and subsidy, but the exact amount of the above expenses is unknown, which is one of the major drawbacks of this democratic activity.

Methods and Tools Used

1.problem definition

This case study was conducted in the form of mini-public, mainly in the form of consensus meetings, the residents' committee presented the proposal to the residents through lectures and visits, combined with the residents' demands, and held several discussions with the residents' representatives to define the problems of the whole process from bid setting, design, to construction.

2.option analysis

First, the designer designed the first set of options for the renovation of the old neighborhood, and the neighborhood committee published the options online and offline. The residents' representatives put forward different demands, some wanted to create a residents' meeting room, others wanted to refurbish the carport and so on. With the help of experts, they analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the different options.

3.option selection

Representatives of the residents, designers and experts held several consensus meetings, which focused on "What is the focus of the renovation? What is the best design? How to finish the construction?" The residents' representatives voted and finally came to the conclusion that instead of creating a living room for the residents, we would repair and renovate the existing carport, and add charging ports and fireproof partitions.

4.Implementation

At the final stage of construction, the community residents and the construction representatives signed two co-management agreements, which effectively solved the problem of responsibility shifting in the construction process and greatly improved the efficiency of the construction. The residents learned about the construction under the guidance of experts, and they also supervised the whole construction process. In addition, the residents' committee released news in real time, which also made the construction process more transparent.

What Went On: Deliberation, Decisions, and Public Interaction

At the initial stage, the initiative for the renovation of the Guoyuan 235 community in Tongzhou was published online and offline. The project was hosted by the Tongzhou District Major Project Coordination Service Centre and supervised by the Beijing Housing and Construction Commission and the Tongzhou District Housing and Construction Commission. Firstly, the first version of the renovation plan regarding the construction of the Guoyuan was designed by a designer’s team. After the preliminary plan was made, it was presented to the residents through presentations and visits by the aforementioned departments and the design team, together with the residents' committee of the Tongzhou Guoyuan community. During this period, there were so many divisions between the experts, designers and the residents on certain renovation project. For example, there were two dilapidated carports in the Guoyuan 235 neighborhood. The main designer who responsible for it, Wang Gong, said that the carport could be used as a "residents' living room" for recreation and deliberation and consultation. The public said that the activity space might affect the residents' rest since it was so closed to while the more urgent problem facing the community is the increasing number of electric bicycles and the difficulty of charging them.

Thus, the first stage of consensus meeting was ushered in in March 2022. Chaired by the Tongzhou District Major Project Coordination Service Centre and supervised by the Beijing Municipal Housing and Construction Commission and the Tongzhou District Housing and Construction Commission, a consensus meeting was formed with the aforementioned 20 randomly selected residents, a team of experts and a design team. Online and offline campaigns were similarly launched to solicit residents' views, including WeChat platforms, government website and community bulletin boards. More than a dozen consultation meetings, large and small, have since taken place, in which the key issues discussed were: What are the key projects for the transformation of the neighborhood? Who will design them? Who will do the construction? [8] Twenty residents' representatives attended the meetings on a regular basis, representing the community and discussing the specific issues of most concern to the people of Guoyuan neighborhood, and the design proposals took more than six months to complete, with five or six versions being revised. And modifications based on the actual demands of the residents could be found everywhere in the proposals. Various ideas, including the aforementioned renovation of the dilapidated carport, were discussed at the meeting. After ideas from residents, feedback, expert evaluation and coordination with the design team, efforts were made to combine feasibility and practicality, and the design proposal was overhauled - instead of creating a residents' meeting room, the original carport was repaired and renovated, with the addition of charging ports and fireproof partitions. This solution was eventually approved by the majority of residents[9]. In March 2022, a plan was released for the renovation of Guoyuan in Tongzhou District, Beijing, which focuses on the lack of water pressure, greenery and recreational areas, as suggested by the residents' representatives[10]. Guoyuan community covers an area of about 200,000 square metres, stretching from the eastern extension of Guangqu Road in the south to the Jingqin railway line in the north, and from Xinhua South Road in the east to the Dafuyuan district in the west, involving six back streets and 17 small alleyways. At the same time, social capital has been actively introduced to convert the vacated factory buildings into a sports and fitness centre, providing residents with diversified leisure and fitness facilities and introducing training in relevant sports according to their fitness needs. The centre will also introduce training in relevant sports to meet the growing demand for sports and fitness. A public opinion survey was conducted in conjunction with the implementation unit, with an overall household penetration rate of over 92%. The Autonomous Vacation Compensation Scheme was formulated and approved by the district government, with a support rate of over 90% from the general public for the compensation scheme. [11]

The second stage is the bidding phase for the city construction companies in June 2022. It should be noted that the renovation activities of the old neighborhoods in Tongzhou District are financed by the government, and the construction qualification bidding form is used to bid for the construction qualification by all city construction group companies. The construction unit was selected by the Beijing Municipal Housing and Construction Commission's Engineering and Construction Department, a team of experts and representatives of residents, etc. The bidding documents were published on the Beijing Engineering and Construction Transaction Information Network on 2 April 2022 to invite bids from the majority of social city construction groups[12]. Before the final tender, relevant experts went through a round of evaluation to select the three construction units with excellent technical and economic indicators, and then selected the best among them at the final tender, allowing residents to score the bids. And finally they combined the experts' professional judgement and residents' intention to renovate to determine the winning bidder. On 16th August 2022, the tender was awarded to China Construction First Group Third Construction Company Limited at a price of around RMB 42 million[13] for the first batch of renovation works in the old neighbourhoods of Tongzhou, including Guoyuan neighbourhood. The separation of the assessment with the participation of residents' representatives was used in order to avoid bribery of government authorities by several urban construction companies bidding for this project, with the aim of obtaining the chance illegally. The use of this method is a relatively new attempt to integrate public participation and supervision in China's urban construction bidding activities. It is a good way to achieve fairness in the market and rational use of financial resources and maximize efficiency.

In the final stage, the construction unit signed two co-management agreements with the community and the property respectively to clarify the responsibilities and ensure that all parties cooperate with each other during the renovation period, avoiding passing the buck, which started in August 2022. The builder associated with the neighborhood committee set up a bulletin boards in Guoyuan community, which introduced various renovation programmes and showed the specific construction steps such as wall base treatment, pasting insulation boards and plastering mortar. At present, 14 districts in Tongzhou District are the first to adopt the assessment and separation method to select construction units with excellent technical indicators and at the same time meet the residents' transformation intentions. In addition, residents who are engaged in related industries, or who know more about engineering and materials, can join the 'supervisory team' to supervise the construction together with the community and properties, and check whether the actual construction is consistent with the planning drawings at any time[14].

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

The initiative has achieved the desired impact, from the design of the renovation, to who was selected for the construction, to the supervision of the construction. It is with this initial intention that Guoyuan neighborhood of Tongzhou District has explored a new model of renovation of old neighborhoods, with the implementation of the various policies of the old renovation, combined with the experience of the previous renovation work of old neighborhoods, and with the core of the common discussion and collaborative governance. Residents, as beneficiaries of the transformation, are no longer spectators of the transformation, but participants in it. Only by continuously improving democratic participation, coordination and supervision in the process of old transformation and ensuring residents' right to information and participation can we further enhance their sense of well-being and access. [15]

The scheme has played an important role in changing the social structure of the community. The first step in the transformation to satisfy the residents is to select a construction unit that satisfies the residents, therefore, based on the experience of the previous work on the old transformation, the innovative use of the 'separation of assessment' bidding method, experts select and the residents decide, so that the residents are involved from the bidding stage This allows the residents to participate in the process from the tendering stage. It is an important project for the people and it is important to listen to public opinion.

In addition to the official government policy, residents are encouraged to start learning all kinds of construction knowledge on their own initiative, such as how to protect residents' water during water outages, whether construction materials have been piled up haphazardly, and what the recovery situation will be after demolition and renovation. The construction unit will sign two separate co-management agreements with the community and the property to clarify the responsibilities of each party and ensure that all parties cooperate with each other during the renovation period to avoid shifting the blame.

Citizens have the right to decide how best to allocate financial resources while knowing how the funds will be used. Therefore, consensus meetings are no longer closed as in the previous fiscal system, which greatly prevents mistakes and corruption in the use of fiscal funds, better promotes social justice, makes citizens more satisfied and gives them a sense of participation. During the public discussion process, the government can understand public opinion through in-depth observation, which not only informs budgetary decisions, but also provides opportunities for other decisions[16].

Analysis and Lesson Learned

Firstly, it is worth mentioning that the participation of the residents in the plot improvement plan in this case is a very rare case. In this case, the number of people involved in consensus conference is limited. Although a large number of people have participated in the renovation of their neighbourhood under the guidance of the government and with the participation of residents, with 87% of residents participating in the content of the renovation through online and offline questionnaires, this number is not large enough to cover a larger number of residents[17].

Therefore, in the future, more residents in the community can establish consensus conference on their own, rather than waiting for government orders to be given before participating [18]. And consensus conference needs to be expanded to ensure that the views of more residents can be seen.

Secondly, most of the participants were satisfied with the final outcome, because in the previous neighborhood renovation, it was difficult for the residents' opinions to influence the whole process. In contrast, the consensus meeting in this case was supported by the Tongzhou district government, and the residents' representatives participated in the neighborhood renovation process, and they were able to give their opinions on each part of the renovation. This effectively prevented the construction process from being severely compromised due to residents' dissatisfaction during the construction process [18].

Therefore, in the future, it is necessary to expand the contact between the residents of the neighborhood and the construction company and the government, and together form an organization that includes the residents of the neighborhood, the personnel of the construction company, and the government staff to ensure that the opinions of all parties are taken into account. And it is necessary to increase the involvement of grassroots government staff in the renovation of the neighborhood, because they are closer to the residents of the neighborhood, understand the actual situation of the neighborhood, and they are able to solve problems in time.

Finally, the most difficult thing in this case study is to balance the opinions and conflicts of different people. It remains a challenge to reach a consensus when people have different opinions on critical issues. Several methods can be used, such as setting up a voting and scoring session in the conference, and the one with the highest score can be the best solution.

Overall, the planning and implementation of this case is comparably smooth. This case demonstrates the application of public awareness meetings in the Chinese region, which has led to the participation of the neighborhood residents in the renovation plan and the satisfaction of the neighborhood residents and government departments. It is worthwhile to learn from this case for other cities in China for infrastructure renovation in the future.

References

[1] Đorđević, Ana; Vasiljević, Jelena (2022), "The Effects of Deliberation on Citizen Knowledge, Attitudes and Preferences: A Case Study of a Belgrade Deliberative Mini Public", Philosophy and Society 33 (1): 72-97.

[2] The General Office of the State Council issued "Guiding Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Renovation of Old Urban Areas" Chinese government website [cited 2021-06-19]

[3] People's Government of Tongzhou District, Beijing: Knowledge Base of Interactive Questions and Answers between the Government and the People, 2022.7.4

http://www.bjtzh.gov.cn/bjtz/c110351/202207/1600067.shtml

[4][11] Organic renewal of 35 old districts and fine management of 81 streets and alleys. 2022.2.11. Bejing Community Newspaper Tongzhou Edition

https://view.inews.qq.com/k/20220211A07ULY00?web_channel=wap&openApp=false&f=newdc

[5][6] Announcement of the results of the tender for the finishing works of 3# residential buildings, 7# residential buildings and 8# residential buildings of the R2 Class II residential land use project in block TZ00-0024-0006 and 0007, Tongzhou New Town, Tongzhou District, 0204. 2022.7.20. Beijing Engineering Construction Bidding and Tendering Transaction System

https://ggzyfw.beijing.gov.cn/jyxxzbgg/20220720/3168884.html

[7][8] Something good to discuss｜Tongzhou old district renovation "residents have their say" 2022.10.26, Beijing Daily Press Group.

https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1747709876069846837&wfr=spider&for=pc

[9] Construction organization design for residential building in Guoyuan South Court Sub-district, Tongzhou District, 2022.4.15 https://jz.docin.com/p-3220528517.html

[10] "Beijing Tongzhou District "14th Five-Year" period old district transformation plan" released residents around the space to see the green water to enjoy the culture.2022.3.23, Beijing Tongzhou District Day Media Centre 

https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1728088361518766720&wfr=spider&for=pc

[12] Pre-qualification Announcement for Construction of the First Batch (One Bidding Section) of the Comprehensive Treatment Project for Older Communities in Tongzhou District in 2021, 2022.4.2, Beijing Engineering Construction Bidding and Tendering Transaction System

https://ggzyfw.beijing.gov.cn/jyxxggjtbyqs/20220402/2736148.html

[13] Announcement of Successful Bidding Results for the First Batch (Second Bidding Section) of the Comprehensive Improvement Project for Older Communities in Tongzhou District in 2021, 2022.8.15, Beijing Engineering Construction Bidding and Tendering Transaction System

https://ggzyfw.beijing.gov.cn/jyxxzbgg/20220815/3292206.html

[14] First attempt! Tongzhou this 14 old neighborhood big transformation, how to change the "residents say it"! https://www.sohu.com/a/600611209_103567

[15] PolicySciences (2019) 52:481-503 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-018-09346-8

[16] Daan Jacobs & Wesley Kaufmann (2021) The right kind of participation? The effect of a deliberative mini-public on the perceived legitimacy of public decision making, Public Management Review, 23:1, 91-111 https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2019.1668468

[17] Beijing Tongzhou District People's Government. The first batch (three and four bids) of the 2021 Tongzhou District Comprehensive Improvement Project for Older Districts was successfully completed. http://zhengfu.bjtzh.gov.cn/zjw/fzx/202209/1614557.shtml

[18] How does the renovation of old residential areas reflect the wishes of residents? 2022.7.4 Tongzhou District People’s Governor’s of Beijing Municipality.

 http://www.bjtzh.gov.cn/bjtz/c110351/202207/1600067.shtml