Villas Disguised as Greenhouses Skirt China Land Zoning Rules

Chinese authorities are cracking down on rural villas disguised as greenhouses to skirt bans on residential use of land zoned for crop production. News media have been reporting instances of villas, resorts, and restaurants built around a greenhouse or hidden inside a giant greenhouse. The "greenhouse villas" (大棚房) skirt rules forbidding nonagricultural use of land designated for grain production or as "permanent farmland" by building a greenhouse and calling it a "modern agriculture" project. Most of the structures are occupied or operated by city people from outside the village that owns the land. Such developments are found all over the country.

A resort-type building and landscaping being constructed inside a greenhouse to evade restrictions on developing farmland.

A fancy teahouse built inside a greenhouse.

China Central Television reported finding an entire real estate development hidden under greenhouses that had been approved as a "vegetable production base" featuring greenhouse farming and a "company + base + farmer" model. A salesperson offered the CCTV reporter a choice of several options of varying sizes and prices and assured the reporter that the developers had an agreement to lease the land from the village for 50 years.

In Tianjin, a number of farmers' vegetable cooperatives have developed greenhouse villa projects. For example, one cooperative set up in 2013 gained control of a village land parcel and recruited an outside sales company the following year. Some renters constructed houses, gardens and paved walkways inside greenhouses. This year there were 155 greenhouse villas covering 6 hectares designated as "permanent farmland." The local land administration bureau destroyed the project this year.

On August 20, the Ministries of Natural Resources and Agriculture and Rural Affairs began a remediation campaign, destroying 14 greenhouse villas as examples. Supposedly, the land is being returned to crop production.
On September 9, the central communist party leadership launched a special cleanup remediation action to crack down on greenhouse villas.


Greenhouse villas are destroyed in Langfang, Hebei Province as part of the rectification program.