Our country's urban development boundary management will implement new regulations

To strengthen the management of urban-rural development boundaries, the Ministry of Natural Resources will trial a new set of measures for the administration of urban development boundaries, in order to guide cities and towns toward intensive and compact growth and to continuously optimize the spatial layout of cities and towns. On the 28th, the Ministry of Natural Resources held a regular press conference to brief on the relevant details of the Interim Measures for the Administration of Urban Development Boundaries. The measures are designed to optimize the entire process around delineation, implementation, adjustment, and maintenance of urban development boundaries. They require that the bottom line of resource security be upheld and that unsuitable areas for urban construction be avoided, such as contiguous high-quality farmland and natural ecological spaces, as well as areas with high risk of geological disasters. The measures also define the scale of newly added construction land within urban development boundaries, strictly control the occupation of farmland, forest land, and wetlands for urban construction, and shift urban development from relying on newly added land to revitalizing existing stock space.

The measures enhance the dynamic capacity of urban development boundaries to adapt to economic and social development. Under the premise of not violating the overall national land spatial plan and maintaining overall stability in the spatial layout of cities and towns, they clarify circumstances in which positive optimization is possible due to the implementation of major strategies and the construction of major projects. Local authorities should further strengthen the management of the scale and structure of urban construction land, improve urban functions, and enhance spatial quality. Xiè Haixia, director of the Bureau of Territorial Space Planning under the Ministry of Natural Resources, said that within urban development boundaries, the planning requirements for urban construction land should be further refined and improved to address gaps in public service facilities. Outside urban development boundaries, the addition of new urban construction land should be strictly controlled, and various types of new towns and new areas, development zones, non-agricultural industrial parks, and other types of land for concentrated construction must not be planned or built.