I. Location of Project

Xiongan New Area: three counties of Xiong, Rongcheng and Anxin of Hebei Province and the surrounding areas.

II. Questions Identified

Taking the implementation of the requirements of spatial planning - “coordinated and operable” - as the breakthrough point, the project team analyzed and proposed that there were two problems restricting the governance capability of spatial planning: first, poor coordination between various types of planning, and insufficient management of protected space; second, the operability of planning was generally insufficient, and there were gaps between the formulation and implementation & management.

III. Ideas of Planning

The project team strengthened the connection of planning and policies, arriving at three strategies: First, build a governance system covering all factors and the whole region, and strengthen the unified management of development and protection. Second, improve governance rules in the formulation of planning and strengthen the connection of planning and implementation policies. Third, strike a balance between flexibility and rigidity, and coordinate well the relationship between protection and development.

IV. Practice of Method

The project team carried out practical exploration in the following three aspects.

In content structure and governance rules, instead of following the previous form of making the target the center of the content, the plan gave prominence to the governance rules centering on use control and ecological protection and restoration, regarding this as the main structure of the content.

In use control, the plan defined 11 types of use control zoning to implement the control requirements of spatial development pattern; the zones were of clear boundaries, covering the whole region and not overlapping with each other. The principle of regional delineation based on the difference of main functions was pursued to cater to the needs of later implementation and management.

In ecological protection and restoration, the plan established the framework of rules for ecological protection and restoration. Under the framework, the project team set up a control method combining trans-regional factor system control and zonal difference control, fully connecting the needs of relevant competent authorities, selecting a certain number of key indicators for ecological quality control, and clarifying the control requirements of zonal difference transmission.