Exploration on regeneration and Governance of Residential Communities in Historical Areas —— A Case Study of Meiyuan New Village Community in Nanjing (Part 2)

Source: <http://www.jjzb.net/images-jidi/meiyuan>

03 The process of community regeneration in Meiyuan New Village 

3.1 The process of community renewal 

Due to the lack of management and maintenance, and some other developign factors, the physical environment of Meiyuan New Village has obviously declined, which is mainly reflected in the damage of buildings, poor landscape environment, serious phenomenon of indiscriminate construction, poor traffic conditions, defects in road facilities and advertising signs, which causes the chaos of the overall environment. Therefore, the regeneration of Meiyuan New Village Community started with the physical spaces and supportive facilities, and took Xuanwu District Government as the leading stakeholder to rectify and improve the basic space environment in an all-round way. 

The regeneration of the space was carried out in stages. In 2006, the Republican residence in Meiyuan New Village was mainly renovated. In 2007, buildings in Yongyuan District were mainly renovated, and in 2008, the Republican residence in Taoyuan New Village was mainly rectified.

3.2 The implementation effect of community regeneration 

3.2.1 Effect of spatial regeneration 

The first phase of Meiyuan New Village community regeneration was basically completed on October 20, 2006, which entirely costed three months, mainly completing the overall improvement of buildings, styles and roads. The regeneration of the physical space has benefited the local residents and played a positive role in the historical and cultural protection of the area. 

3.2.2 Exploration of regeneration system 

Historical areas usually left various historical problems, among which building ownership can be an important issue. There are departmental public houses in Meiyuan new village community, and the effect is usually not ideal only by relying on limited rent to maintain the repair of houses; At the same time, the renter has no property right of the house, and the consciousness of house repair is relatively weak. In view of this, in the process of community regeneration, Xuanwu District Government established a mechanism to directly manage the regeneration process and the use of public housing, the essence of which is to evacuate and resettle the original residents, transfer the property rights of the real estate through specialized institutions, and hand it over to the new owners for renovation and maintenance of the house. Then use the function replacement to carry out secondary development and utilization of the building to solve the problem of the source of funds for house repairment and maintenance. The advantage of the mechanism of directly governing public houses is that a responsible supervision by specialized agencies on the process from property right transfer to the implementation of building renovation so as to guarantee actual interests of local residents to a certain extent. At the same time supervises the effect of building renovation, to better maintain the coordination of the overall environment of the area.

3.3 Discussion on the subject and mechanism of participating in community regeneration actions 

The community regeneration of Meiyuan New Village is carried out under the mode of government-led and multi-party participation, and the participants include local residents, investors and relevant experts and scholars. Each subject has played an active role in the process of community spatial regeneration. The government, as the main organizer and responsible party, plays an important intermediary role, coordinate and communicate with local residents; Community residents, as beneficiaries, provided public opinions and actively cooperated in the spatial regeneration, to make sure regeneration movements can both satisfy residents' interests, and also substantially improve the space quality and form a win-win situation. Experts and scholars, as third-party participants who have no direct interests, providing professional and technical support for the government's decision-making as consultants, and creating reliable updating schemes from an objective and feasible perspective.

The community spatial regeneration of Meiyuan New Village has achieved good results, and the physical spatial environment has been obviously improved. The renovation of various facilities and the addition of public landscape have laid a good foundation for the subsequent spatial regeneration process. However, in the initial stage, the community environment regeneration is aimed at the development of cultural tourism, focusing on the optimization of key interfaces, key buildings, and basic facilities related to cultural tourism services. Concentrated on the spatial regeneration of specific local areas, and paying less attention to the relatively microscopic daily living environment of community residents, community culture, and community development.

04 Re-cognition of Community Regeneration in Meiyuan New Village 

After the first round (2006-2008) of large-scale regeneration actions, Meiyuan New Village has been developing independently and gradually for nearly ten years. In order to understand the current development status of the community, this study conducted a field survey on Meiyuan New Village community and the surrounding areas. Combined with the protection scope of Meiyuan New Village in Nanjing Historical and Cultural City Protection Plan (2010-2020), the investigation scope is expanded to a square area surrounded by Zhongshan East Road, Xi 'anmen Tunnel, Qinhuai River and Taiping North Road.

4.1 Community resources and assets 

Meiyuan New Village Area is located near Xinjiekou Commercial Center, the central area of the city with a good access to public transport that subway lines No.1 and No.2 passing around. Adjacent to the Presidential Palace, it is about 3 kilometers away from the Qinhuai Scenic Belt of Confucius Temple and Zhongshan Scenic Area, which is closely related to the main tourism resources and historical and cultural resources in the city. 

There are many cultural and educational facilities in the research scope, and the main types are libraries, art galleries, museums, kindergarten schools, and cultural heritage buildings. Among the historical residential buildings, Meiyuan New Village is mainly a single-family villa with private garden, Yongyuan is mainly a single-family villa with no garden, and Taoyuan New Village is mainly a row-type building complex. The historical and cultural assets of the area are mainly the resident history of the CPC delegation, involving related activities, events and celebrities, as well as the unique customs and Buddhist culture of Pilu Temple.

4.2 Social capital 

At present, most of the residents in Meiyuan New Village are military families and most of them are elderly people. At the same time, it also includes a small group of artists. 

According to the investigation, the operation of the Party-mass Service Center in Meiyuan New Village Community is relatively good. Community organizations have carried out a wealth of activities, and community residents (mainly the elderly) actively participated, forming a good community cultural atmosphere.

Author: Qian Yufei, Southeast University Architecture College

Source:<https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/oCI1OG62xcqQj1XDoVE11g>

Translated by Zhang Chenxi