A WOMAN surnamed Zhang recently reported that the owners of the building she is living in submitted the required documents for installing elevators in existing residential buildings to the relevant departments a long time ago, but the application has yet to be approved, the Shenzhen Evening News reported yesterday.

On Sept. 11, the city officially released regulations on installing elevators in existing residential buildings, which lowered the requirements for owners to declare the installation and streamline the approval process.

“I have to climb the stairs step by step and move slowly if I buy things that are even a little heavy, such as oil and fruit. My waist aches by the time I reach the seventh story,” complained Liu, a 60-year-old resident of the building.

Liu and Zhang are both residents of the A10 Building in the dormitory area of Hengfeng Industrial Park in Bao’an District. The building was originally a dormitory for the industrial park and belongs to industrial land.

However, according to Zhang, many of the apartments had been sold to individuals in recent years. The apartments are mostly occupied by the owners, who possess property certificates.

For instance, in Zhang’s building, apart from the first floor that belongs to the property management office, the remaining seven floors are either occupied by owners themselves or rented out by the owners.

As the other apartment owners also feel the need to install an elevator, the building owner decided to apply to relevant departments for the installation after consultations at the end of 2016. It took the owners two years to reach a consensus, prepare materials and raise money, according to Zhang.

According to the regulations issued Sept. 11, an elevator can be installed if the proposal is agreed to by more than two-thirds of the owners in the building.

It is also stipulated that an elevator can only be installed in a residential building with at least four stories. The building must have a legal certificate of ownership and be currently in use.

The documents provided by Zhang also showed that more than two-thirds of the owners in the A10 Building had agreed to install an elevator, according to the News report.

Zhang’s building belongs to industrial land and doesn’t fall within the scope of residential housing, a staffer surnamed Liao with the Bao’an land authority told the reporter from the newspaper.

Moreover, the upgrading of industrial park facilities requires more documents than simply declaring the installation of an elevator, according to a staffer surnamed Li with the district’s urban renewal bureau. (Zhang Yu)