Month: November 2012

Something to think about (1)

Posted on by catforehead

As mentioned elsewhere in this blog and others, we live on what has been described as the most expensive train line in Japan. It’s also one of the most convenient–if you’re traveling into Tokyo or to Narita Airport. If you’re trying to get somewhere in the local vicinity that isn’t directly on the line, however, it’s not convenient at all. For instance, a few weeks ago we wanted to inspect a property in Sakura, a fairly large city in northern Chiba, which happens to be serviced by two train lines. As the crow flies, Sakura is directly southeast of where we live, and by car probably would take about a half hour to reach, but we don’t own a car. By train it would take more than an hour, though, as well as a considerable monetary investment, because we would have to go into Narita first and then transfer to another line, and while the line we live on does go to the airport, it doesn’t actually stop in Narita city, which is where the connections are.

So we did what we usually do: rode bicycles to the property. Pedaling from Inzai to Sakura gives you a perspective you wouldn’t otherwise have if you drove or took the train. Inzai is still “developing,” as it were, and has been carefully planned; or, at least, more carefully planned than other cities in Chiba. The roads are wide and straight. Sidewalks provide ample bicycle lanes. Subdivisions do not encroach awkwardly on farmland or abundant tracts of forest–the satoyama dynamic holds for the most part. The commercial areas are well contained and laid out in a relatively efficient fashion. As you pass from Inzai to Sakura, these features slowly give way to the more common Japanese suburban clutter. The roads become narrower and sidewalks eventually disappear altogether. Houses and commercial buildings appear on top of one another. Main thoroughfares take forever to get where they’re going and if you really want to get there in a reasonable amount of time you have to constantly stop and check a map. Japan, as someone once told me, was custom made for GPS. Read More

This land is UR land

Posted on by catforehead

Tract of UR-owned land near Inzai Makinohara station on the Hokuso Line

The Asahi Shimbun recently reported that the government finished auditing its accounts for fiscal 2011. The board that conducted the investigation found 513 separate cases of “waste” comprising ¥529.16 billion, the largest amount since records have been compiled. In the wake of media reports that have government organs inappropriately using tax money earmarked for reconstruction of the disaster-hit Tohoku region, it is natural to assume that this waste would be doubly scrutinized, but we won’t hold our breath. One of the areas that will probably invite less concern is assets held by dokuritsu gyosei hojin–independent administrative agencies–that remain unused. In 2010, the cabinet issued a directive that such assets should be returned to the government, but apparently that’s not happening as the auditors found lots of unused assets lying around–literally, in many cases, since the assets that seem to be the most problematic are real estate-related. The National Hospital Organization, for instance, owns 217,000 square meters of land valued at ¥6.7 billion that remains undeveloped and with no plans for development. According to the cabinet directive this land should be handed over to the national government.

Another independent administrative agency with lots of unused assets is Toshi Saisei Kiko, more popularly known as UR (Urban Renaissance), the semi-public housing corporation that the government would like to make completely private because it’s such a sinkhole for money. Since UR’s business is the sale, development, and management of real estate, its unused asset problem is also a business problem, and the auditors found that the company controlled 223 hectares of land valued at ¥89.7 billion that was unused, which many not sound like much, but apparently the audit board was only talking about assets that were supposed to be “processed” during FY2011. As almost everyone knows, UR has lots and lots of land that remains undeveloped, and since all of UR’s debts are covered by the government the auditors insist that UR can cover at least some of its deficits by liquidating land assets. Read More