Elevators give Shanghai residents a needed lift

For years, 75-year-old Qiu Qinghe and her 94-year-old mother, who live in downtown Shanghai's Jing'an district, felt trapped because there was no elevator to their sixth-floor apartment in their old residential building.

According to Qiu, at least two people had to help her mother every time she needed to go downstairs, which took nearly half an hour. Qiu, who is suffering from bone spurs in her knees, also had trouble with the stairs.

That all changed last December when an elevator was installed in their building on the street Linfen Lu.

Qiu's family is not alone. Statistics show that 80 percent of multifloor residential buildings in neighborhoods on Linfen were built in the 1980s and 1990s, and about 13,000 residents living on the third floor and above in those buildings are aged 60 and older. Due to the underdeveloped economic environment at the time, most are six or seven-story structures with two or more apartments per floor, but with no elevators.

To make life easier for such residents, especially the older ones, the city issued elevator installation guidelines in 2011 outlining items such as the distribution of costs and fire safety.

Since then, over 952 multistory residential buildings in Shanghai have installed elevators or are preparing to do so.

Around 624 of the buildings initiated elevator installations in 2019, almost double the number from 2012 to 2018, and 221 elevators have been put into operation following government promotions of such projects.

The progress can be attributed to measures taken by the city and districts.

An updated city policy last year, for instance, clarified that a proposal for installing an elevator needs agreement of two-thirds of the residents in the building, down from 90 percent previously. It also allowed residents to use their housing funds－a kind of national social welfare given to Chinese employees, which normally can only be withdrawn for situations such as purchasing housing property and paying back a mortgage－to pay for elevator installations.

Additionally, subsidies offered by district governments for each elevator surged to 280,000 yuan ($41,400) from 240,000 yuan.

The effort by local neighborhood committees coupled with support and understanding by residents have also been key to tackling problems and ensuring successful installation.

Neighborhoods on Linfen, where the installation progress has gone smoothly, has set a great example for other districts.

Among the 17 neighborhoods with no elevators on Linfen, 16 have already launched installation projects that were agreed to by all residents.

Lyu Wenjie, Party secretary of the Linfen residential community, said one of the greatest challenges during the process was to persuade ground floor residents to add elevators, which they feared could block sunlight and ventilation of their apartments, as well as create noise.

"To tackle the problem, we took the residents to visit other neighborhoods where elevators have been built, and held meetings with resident representatives to adjust construction plans," Lyu said.

"WeChat groups were also set up for further communication," she added.

Cost sharing is another major issue. Under the current policy, residents should cover around 260,000 to 460,000 yuan for installing each elevator, with the rest paid by the city and district governments.

For some families who are poor, neighborhood committees on Wenxi Road allow them to pay in installments. Other residents can also volunteer to help them pay for the cost in advance.

Regarding concerns about elevator maintenance, the Linfen committees have integrated follow-up management measures for elevators into their criteria assessing the service quality of neighborhoods every year.

A professional team was established to introduce elevator installation to residents, as well as coordinate and solve various conflicts during the construction.

"There are headaches, but also heartwarming moments," said Linfen resident Ni Rongfeng. "Most residents are really understanding and supportive, even those who live on the first floor."

"I now trust the Linfen neighborhood with my retirement life," said Yang Gensheng, a resident who lives on the sixth floor of a building on Linfen who abandoned the idea of moving to a new residence last year when an elevator was installed.