Villagers angry as theme park becomes villas

A billboard advertises the recently completed villa complex in Shaanxi Province. Local farmers were told their land was being requisitioned to make room for a theme park. Photo: Zhang Jun

By Guo Kai

The residents of five villages in Shaanxi Province are protesting after discovering that land requisitioned from them by the government for an Olympic theme park was instead used for a luxury villa complex, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

In early 2001, authorities from Huxian county in the city of Xi’an submitted plans for the park to the Shaanxi provincial government. They claimed it would be built on a stretch of land spanning five villages located to the west of Qinling Mountain.

The public was told the park would be a major tourist attraction and a boon for the local economy.

In March 2001, the provincial government gave the go-ahead for the 250-million-yuan ($36.8 million) project, and the following year, its developers, the Shaanxi Shengjing Property Company, began requisitioning land from local farmers, which led to disputes.

According to the Xinhua report, the developers cut off the water and power supplies to the village of Wanjunzhai in a bid to make 460 residents move 500 meters across the Taiping River, while in Caotangying, dozens of villagers were injured during scuffles with developers in June 2004.

Despite people’s protests, the county government authorized the company to make initial payments to the villagers of just 20 percent of the value of the land they had seized, the report said.

Once the land was cleared in 2006, the developer began construction not of an Olympic theme park, but a villa project named Shanshui Caotang.

After receiving petitions from the villagers, the provincial government carried out an investigation into the change of land use later that year. It found that the Xi’an government changed its plans in 2005 and had issued licenses for the villas in 2007.

Officials said they had not been informed of the change, however, and will now reopen their investigation.