A recent central government guideline on urban planning has sparked heated debate among Internet users over opening up gated residential¹ communities to public road system, with an online poll showing that a majority of participants oppose it.

最近中央发布城市规划指导意见，要求打开封闭住宅小区的大门，实现内部道路公共化。这一决定在网上引发了热议。一项网络调查显示，多数受访者持反对态度。

The Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, or the cabinet, issued the guideline on February 21 in an effort to treat the problems associated with the country's urbanization and the growth of city sprawl².

中共中央国务院于2月21日发布该指导意见，来应对我国城市化及城市扩张带来的相关问题。

The guideline said that the roads in the newly established communities will be open to the public, becoming part of the urban road system, and the old communities will gradually connect their roads to the public roads. That is to better utilize³ the urban land and optimize⁴ the urban road network.

该指导意见提出，新建小区道路将对外开放，成为城市公共道路系统的一部分，旧小区道路将逐渐与公共道路相连接。这将会更好地利用城市土地、优化城市道路网络。

The news on gated communities triggered an uproar⁵ among netizens. Since the CCTV News published the news on Sina Weibo, a twitter-like microblogging site in China, at 8:15 pm Sunday, it had been forwarded 15,000 times and generated 3,600 comments by 10 am Monday morning.

这条有关封闭社区的新闻在网民中引起一片哗然。自从周日晚上8:15中央电视台新闻在新浪微博（中国的一个类似推特的微博网站）上公布了这条消息之后，截至周一上午10点已经被转发了15000次并生成了3600条评论。

Many Internet users have expressed concern over the potential risks from opening up the gated communities, including noise and air pollution, traffic congestion⁶ and public safety.

许多网友表示开放封闭住宅小区会潜在风险，比如：噪音和空气污染，交通堵塞以及公共安全。

One Internet user said that such highlight in the guideline might violate the country's property law, since the home owners also paid for the roads in the communities when they bought the apartments.

一位网友表示，该指导意见中的这项重要举措可能侵犯了国家的物权法，因为房主在购买房屋的同时也同样为社区中的道路买单。

Xu Xin, a law professor from the Beijing Institute of Technology, said that demanding old communities to open roads to the public was "unreasonable⁷ and illegal".

北京理工大学的法律学教授徐鑫表示，要求旧社区向公众开放道路是不合理和不合法的。

Home owners have the property right to the roads in old communities, which are protected by the country's laws, and the government could not demand them to open, Xu said. But new communities could be built with roads linking to the public road system, without problems, he said.

徐鑫说，住宅区的房主对于道路有财产权，这是被国家法律所保护的，政府不能够强制他们开放。但新住宅区可以被建设的与公共道路系统相连接，这是没有问题的。