terminate determinately upon expiry of a predetermined contract term, without being renewed. By the end of 2011, more than 70,000 houses had been supplied on a fixed-term land lease basis.

To facilitate wider dissemination acceptance of this system, the Ministry is working to clarify the tax procedures, etc. for handling prepaid rents – a third kind of lump-sum payment next to deposits and premiums.

Graphic II-5-1-3 Developments in the Supply of Housing on Fixed-Term Land Leases

Source) MLIT

## (4) Revitalizing aging new towns

The Ministry is ready to address the needs to upgrade urban residential areas (new towns) that have been developed on a planned basis as their houses and facilities age and the residents get older and divide into smaller families and thus continue utilizing them as acceptable stocks.

It also provides information on area management $ ^{Note} $ that aids in revitalization of the new towns.

## Section 2 Realizing Comfortable Living Environment

### 1 Developing City Parks, etc. and Shaping a Good Urban Environment

(1) Status of development of city parks, etc. and approaches to upgrading them

Because city parks, etc. are key facilities laid out to fill diversified public needs, national government parks, the development of national government parks, disaster preparedness parks, etc. and the preservation of time-honored cities and green spaces have been implemented efficiently and on a planned basis, with primary emphasis on:

① Building a safe and secure municipality furnished with disaster preparedness parks that could serve as evacuation sites, etc.;

② Building safe and secure community sites to address the issues of an aging population with falling birthrates;

③ Preserving and shaping a good natural environment that aids in building a recycling-oriented society or addressing global environmental issues; and

④ Building sites for Advancing tourism that takes advantage of regional characteristics or for inter-regional exchanges or collaboration.

All areas of Bihoku Hillside National Government Park opened in April 2012 (Shobara City, Hiroshima Prefecture)

Source) Bihoku Hillside National Government Park

At the end of FY2011, city parks, etc. were maintained at 101,111 locations nationwide, covering 119,016 ha, or about 9.9m $ ^{2} $ per capita. National government parks were visited by about 31.99 million persons during the same fiscal year (one out of every four Japanese people) as they were developed and refurbished at 17 locations during FY2012.

## (2) Shaping a green urban environment

The Ministry promotes urban greening and green space preservation pursuant to the Master Plan for Greenery, a basic plan on the preservation of green spaces and promotion of greening formulated by a municipality with a view to combating global warming and addressing global environmental issues, such as biodiversity, and preserving and shaping a good natural environment. The preservation of green spaces is ensured by advancing the development of green-rich city parks and by utilizing the Special Green Conservation Areas program, which aims to protect plantation by restricting the construction of buildings, etc. or purchasing land, and the Civic Green Space System, which makes green spaces available to citizens under contract. These approaches as a whole are aided by General Grants for Social Infrastructures, etc. Inter-