China ‘nail tomb’: Developers build high-rise around single grave after family refuses compensation

National Post Wire Services | December 6, 2013

Associated PressWo

China 'nail tomb': Developers build high-rise around single grave

Less than one week after Chinese authorities demolished the latest “nail house” that was obstructing a newly paved highway, images of a “nail tomb” have surfaced.

The latest land dispute in China has resulted in a very strange site: a single gravestone currently sits on top of a mound of dirt ten metres high in the middle of a construction site in Taiyuan in north China’s Shanxi province.

A developer is building a residential complex around the solitary tomb after the descendants of the deceased buried there refused 1,000,000 yuan ($160,454) offered as compensation for the land.

A villager from nearby Longbao was buried at the site eight years ago, and the family says they do not understand why developers would choose the location in question, The Daily Mail reported. Despite the ten-metre square island in the middle of their job site, the developers are reportedly sticking to their work schedule, and expect the complex to be completed by April 2013.

The news comes just weeks after Chinese authorities demolished a five-story home that stood incongruously in the middle of a new main road and had become the latest symbol of resistance by Chinese homeowners against officials accused of offering unfair compensation.

Workers lay the foundation for a residential complex around a solitary tomb site in Taiyuan in north China's Shanxi province.Images of the house circulated widely online in China, triggering a flurry of domestic and foreign media reports about the latest “nail house,” as buildings that remain standing as their owners resist development are called.

Xiayangzhang village chief Chen Xuecai said the house was bulldozed Dec. 1 after its owners, duck farmer Luo Baogen and his wife, agreed to accept compensation of 260,000 yuan ($41,000).

In this photo combo, shows the before and after of a house that was sitting in the middle of a new main road on the outskirts of Wenling

 city in east China's Zhejiang province. Authorities have demolished the five-story home, Saturday, Dec. 1. 2012.

The couple had been the lone holdouts from a neighbourhood that was demolished to make way for the main thoroughfare heading to a newly built railway station on the outskirts of the city of Wenling in Zhejiang province.

Luo, 67, had just completed his house at a cost of about 600,000 yuan ($95,000) when the government approached him with their standard offer of 220,000 ($35,000) to move out — which he refused, Chen has previously said. The offer then went up to 260,000 yuan ($41,000) last week.

It was not immediately clear why Luo accepted the compensation in a meeting with officials Friday afternoon when the amount of money offered was the same as a week ago.

Village chief Chen said Luo was tired of all the media attention and voluntarily consented to the deal. “Luo Baogen received dozens of people from the media every day and his house stands in the centre of the road. So he decided to demolish the house,” Chen said.

Authorities commonly pressure residents to agree to make way for development with sometimes extreme measures, such as cutting off utilities or moving in to demolish when residents are out for the day. In Luo’s case, however, he had told local reporters last week his electricity and water were still flowing.

Real estate is one of the big drivers of China’s runaway growth in recent decades. But the rapid development has run into objections from many of the hundreds of thousands of residents who have been forced out to make way for new housing, factories and other business ventures, creating a major source of unrest.