The central government will continue to provide strong support for urban renewal.

On the 8th, the State Council Information Office held a regular press briefing on State Council policies. Four departments, including the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, provided an interpretation of China’s first national-level urban renewal special plan, the “14th Five-Year Plan” for Urban Renewal and the 15th Five-Year Plan, clarifying goals and tasks, refining policy measures, and responding to public concerns.

Urban inspections are the work foundation for urban renewal. “We must adhere to ‘conduct inspections first, then do renewal’ and ‘without inspections, there will be no renewal,’ and carry out urban inspections comprehensively.” Qin Haixiang, deputy minister of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said that based on inspection results, cities should scientifically formulate special urban renewal plans and establish an urban renewal project pool. In addition, an urban renewal statistical survey system will be established to promptly understand local implementation progress and work effectiveness.

Coordinating and推进 urban renewal requires both “hard investment” and “soft construction.” Guan Peng, head of the Fixed Asset Investment Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that in terms of “hard investment,” priority support will be given to public safety and people’s livelihood protection projects such as renovation of aging urban residential communities and renovation of urban dilapidated houses. Coordinated support will also be provided for development-type projects such as upgrading and improving old neighborhoods (factories). “We will continue to allocate funds from the ultra-long-term special national bonds in the ‘Two Priorities’ construction, giving stronger support to projects for building and renovating urban underground utility networks,” Guan Peng said.

In terms of “soft construction,” the initiative of all parties—including residents and enterprises—will be fully mobilized, and the operations and maintenance system will be improved. More emphasis will be placed on governance-related investment to help form a long-term, diversified, and sustainable urban renewal mechanism. In innovating financing and investment mechanisms, the National Development and Reform Commission will support localities in taking measures tailored to local conditions to step up efforts to revitalize existing assets through various methods, enrich the supply of financial products and services, and encourage private enterprises to actively participate in the construction, operation, and maintenance of urban infrastructure.

With large demand for urban renewal funding, in recent years the Ministry of Finance has coordinated various funding channels, including subsidy funds for urban security-based housing projects, local government special bond funds, investment from the central budget for capital expenditures, and ultra-long-term special national bond funds, to support major tasks in urban renewal.

“During the ‘15th Five-Year Plan’ period, the central government will also maintain a relatively strong level of support and continuously optimize policy design to improve the efficiency of fund use. In addition, we will also implement the tax support policies in parallel. Urban renewal entities that meet the requirements may benefit from the existing relevant preferential tax policies,” said Guo Fangming, director of the Economic Construction Department of the Ministry of Finance.

“Localities should make good use of central government fiscal funds, local government special bonds, and credit funds, fully leverage the role of market mechanisms, actively attract social capital to participate, encourage private enterprises to take part in the construction, operation, and maintenance of urban infrastructure, and build a sustainable urban construction and operation financing and investment system,” Qin Haixiang said.

Supporting urban renewal also requires land-space planning and land policies as key levers. Xie Haixia, director of the Land Space Planning Bureau of the Ministry of Natural Resources, said that in optimizing planning and control approaches, for micro-renewal people’s livelihood projects such as installing elevators in aging residential compounds, pocket parks, and community childcare, some planning permit and approval procedures can be simplified or exempted. Temporary use of stock idle land is encouraged, and no further modification of the plan is needed as long as it does not affect the implementation of long-term planning. For old factories and old neighborhoods, multiple formats such as science-and-technology innovation and convenient commercial uses can be accommodated in accordance with the positive list requirements, thereby breaking restrictions imposed by a single land-use type. In innovating land-use support policies, efforts will focus on “inventory first” supply guidance; for operating projects, stock land use should be prioritized, while newly added land should mainly safeguard municipal infrastructure and public-welfare projects.

As for institutional safeguards, Qin Haixiang revealed that the State will be studying and drafting urban renewal-related regulations and supporting localities in issuing local regulations. Currently, four provinces and 20 cities across the country have issued local regulations on urban renewal, providing legal safeguards for the smooth implementation of urban renewal.

[Author: He Jueyuan] (Editor: Wen Jing)

Key words:

                                                            Urban renewal