On December 3, a report by a prominent financial observer “Lost and Found” from Netease, known for focusing on real estate and financial industries, highlighted a mass rights protection incident triggered by a sharp increase in parking fees that erupted late at night on December 1 in Jiahui Mansion, a luxury residential community in the core area of Zhujiang New Town in Guangzhou.
That night, hundreds of homeowners gathered within the community, chanting in unison “opposing price hikes”, protesting against the drastic adjustment in parking fees. In the late night hours, they raised their voices together: “Oppose price hikes.”
Recently, the luxury residential community posted a notice announcing significant increases in parking fees:
– Monthly parking fees skyrocketed from the previous 500 RMB per month to the current 1200 RMB per month.
– Temporary parking charges surged from the previous 4 RMB per hour with a daily cap of 24 RMB, to the current 8 RMB per hour with a daily cap of 80 RMB.
The reason given by the developer for the price hike was that “the number of parking spaces is very limited, and the current costs of manpower, facility maintenance, and repairs have significantly increased, leading to continued substantial losses in overall parking operation.”
However, such a substantial increase in fees has significantly raised the daily parking costs for homeowners, triggering widespread dissatisfaction and collective rights protection efforts.
Jiahui Mansion is a high-rise residential community developed by Guangzhou Jiayu Real Estate Development Co., Ltd., located at No. 80 Huacheng Avenue in the core area of Zhujiang New Town CBD in Tianhe District. The project has a total construction area of 210,000 square meters and is one of the largest residential communities in Zhujiang New Town, consisting of 10 buildings with 33 floors each, completed and delivered ten years ago, with a total of 1368 households.
The listing price of second-hand properties in the community has long been maintained at over 100,000 RMB per square meter, with properties often exceeding a total price of 15 million RMB, indicating its luxury positioning. However, it is worth noting that in the past two months, the average price of some transactions in the community has fallen below 100,000 RMB per square meter, highlighting homeowners’ awareness of fluctuating housing prices.
Against the backdrop of pressure on property prices, the unexpected and substantial increase in parking fees has made it unaffordable for homeowners. Some homeowners have pointed out that adjusting prices is not the issue, but the increase must be reasonable and based on justifications, subject to professional scrutiny and full negotiation with all homeowners, rather than being unilaterally decided through a notice.
Jiayu Real Estate, the developer of Jiahui Mansion, has two individual shareholders behind it – siblings Li Genchang and Li Yuzhen, who are also the actual controllers of the A-share listed company, Jinyi Cinema. Amid the challenging market conditions in recent years, especially due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jinyi Cinema has been under immense operational pressure. Data shows that from 2020 to 2022, Jinyi Cinema’s cumulative losses have exceeded 1.2 billion RMB.
Ten years ago, when Jiayu Real Estate developed and constructed Jiahui Mansion, it retained over 1,300 parking spaces within the community, not selling them externally with the properties. Over the past decade, Jiayu Real Estate has been renting out these parking spaces to homeowners through its property management company, Guangzhou Leidun Hotel Property Management Co., Ltd. (property fee of 3.5 RMB per square meter per month), which is also controlled by the Li siblings.
Homeowners generally believe that the true motive behind the developer’s actions is an attempt to use significant rent increases as a means to push homeowners to transition from “renting” to “buying” these parking spaces. If Jiayu Real Estate could sell these parking spaces in a lump sum, it is estimated that it could quickly recoup a substantial cash flow of seven to eight billion RMB.
After negotiations with homeowners over the rental adjustment broke down, Jiayu Real Estate still chose to unilaterally raise prices significantly, directly leading to this late-night protest for rights protection.