Prefabricated Housing Halted

The 'halt' on prefabricated housing requires understanding in stages and fields; its core is to phase out the construction method for commercial housing and shift to classified governance of existing housing stock, rather than comprehensive demolition.

1. Commercial Housing Sector: Complete Ban on New Construction, Gradual Phase-out of Existing Stock
On September 6, 2002, the state officially issued a document explicitly banning the use of prefabricated panels for constructing commercial housing. Subsequently, various provinces and cities successively introduced local bans (e.g., Sichuan Province in 2005, Jining City in 2012). This policy marked the 'halt' on prefabricated panels as a construction method for commercial housing, primarily due to their poor earthquake resistance, low structural safety, and difficulty in meeting modern building standards. Thereafter, newly constructed commercial housing must adopt safer structural forms such as cast-in-place concrete. However, existing prefabricated panel houses can still be used, provided they undergo safety assessments and renovations to enhance safety.

2. Urban Renewal and Governance: Classified Renovation as the Main Approach, Limiting Demolition Ratios
By 2026, prefabricated panel houses have been included in the scope of urban renewal and housing safety governance in many places. However, policies emphasize 'governance and renovation' rather than 'comprehensive demolition.' For example, the State Council's '15th Five-Year Plan for Urban Renewal' proposes renovating over 500,000 units (rooms) of C- and D-grade dangerous housing and prefabricated panel houses, explicitly stating 'steady progress' in governance and renovation. Notices jointly issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development further limit demolition ratios (the demolished floor area within an renewal unit shall not exceed 20% of the current total floor area, and the demolition-to-construction ratio shall not exceed 2). This implies that the governance of prefabricated panel houses primarily involves repair, reinforcement, reconstruction, or expropriation, with demolition only for houses with serious safety hazards.

3. Rural Self-built Housing Sector: Still Usable but Subject to Regulation
In the rural self-built housing sector, prefabricated panels are still used due to their lower cost and faster construction, despite drawbacks such as water leakage, poor insulation, and low earthquake resistance. Their designed service life generally ranges from 30 to 50 years (potentially shorter with non-standard construction). Supervision of rural self-built housing is relatively lax but must comply with standards such as the 'Technical Guidelines for the Identification of Dangerous Rural Houses' to ensure structural safety. If a house is identified as a D-grade dangerous house (overall danger requiring demolition and reconstruction), it must be 'demolished as much as possible'; houses of other grades can enhance safety through repair and reinforcement.

Core Logic: The 'halt' on prefabricated panel houses essentially involves phasing out their use as a construction method for commercial housing and shifting to classified governance of existing housing stock. Whether a house should be demolished depends on professional safety assessment reports (classified as A-D grades according to the 'Standards for the Identification of Dangerous Houses'), with only D-grade dangerous houses requiring 'demolition as much as possible,' while other houses can enhance safety through renovation.