In the process of renewing and reconstructing urban villages, effective community planning lies in three critical issues: 1) building villagers’ trust in the government and developers, 2) promoting villagers’ participation in the planning process, and 3) communicating effectively among and across all stakeholders. This case presents an innovative model regarding the second critical issue. Against the backdrop of the importance of kinship in local affairs in South China, this case is derived from the practices in the process of reconstructing Lijiao Village within Guangzhou City, the capital of Guangdong province. Kinship association was adopted as a mediator between villagers and other stakeholders, which facilitated effective communication and collaboration.

There were three main stakeholders in this case: 1) the government (i.e., subdistrict office and reconstruction office), 2) the developer (i.e., Zhuguang Group), and 3) economic union consisted of villagers and Wei’s Kinship Association. The coordination of their interests relied mainly on the monthly four-party meetings. It deserves noting that the fourth party was the expert team. The team was expected to offer constructive suggestions for the reconstruction of Lijiao Village because it could maintain relative objectivity as a non-interested party yet with expertise in community planning. It also deserves noting that the kinship association functioned as a mediator between villagers and the developer and the government. On the one hand, the kinship association provided a platform for individual villagers to express their opinions more directly. Otherwise, they would be at a disadvantage when engaging with one-on-one negotiations with the developer and the government. On the other hand, the kinship association helped to clarify villagers’ common interests by integrating their individual opinions. In so doing, the association could present these common interests to the developer and the government in a more clear and orderly way.

Two lessons can be drawn from this case. The first is that of top-down approach to establishing a stable dialogue platform for participation in decision-making. The four-party meetings played a vital role in effectively carrying out the reconstruction of Lijiao Village. These meetings were official ones of a political nature. The government organized the meetings to guarantee the orderly participation of all stakeholders in the community planning process. In these meetings, all stakeholders engaged in deliberation and decision making, thus ensuring the timeliness and trustworthiness of the flow of information, opinions, and feedbacks. With the suggestions from the expert team, the stakeholders could reach consensus more efficiently, ultimately increasing the efficiency of reconstruction process. The second lesson is that of bottom-up approach to communication and collaboration by leveraging social organizations that are trusted by villagers. The kinship associations do not have common interests with other interested parties. Thus, villagers tend to welcome and trust these associations, and developers and the government tend to obtain from the associations the information more aligned with villagers’ common interests. In this sense, kinship associations can greatly streamline the communication among and across multiple parties, which may particularly improve plan implementation based on timely feedbacks.