This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of China. In past decades, Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Urban-Rural Development (hereinafter referred to as "the Bureau") has led the way. With the advent of the stock-based era, urban governance has shifted from "70% construction + 30% governance" to "30% construction + 70% governance", and the CPC Central Committee has highlighted that urban planning must fit the new era, new demands and new conflicts. Against this backdrop, the CPC Wuhan Municipal Committee and the Wuhan Municipal People's Government have proposed to "embed the full life-cycle management concept throughout all stages of urban planning, construction and governance, constantly improve urban planning and construction, and drive high-quality development and modernization in Wuhan".

In the face of the crucial reform mission of urban development and transformation, the practitioners in Wuhan's natural resources and urban-rural development fields keep forging ahead. They brave deep waters and gnaw at hard bones, rejuvenating Wuhan in the new era and writing a new chapter of Chinese modernization in Wuhan.

New changes: Integration of two bureaus for reconstruction of top-level design

This year, the Bureau has been restructured to undertake a variety of tasks, including national land & space planning, management of natural resources, ecological restoration, urban-rural development planning & project management, supervision & management of the construction industry, and village and town construction. Such a new scope of responsibilities implies a need for higher-level planning capabilities. Promoting the ministerial pilot project of redeveloping underutilized land is among the important tasks.

"Land is a scarce resource in cities. After years of rapid urbanization, Wuhan can hardly rely on incremental land to seek further development. Instead, it has to tap into the existing land stock." The person-in-charge from the Bureau introduced that in 2023, Wuhan was among 44 pilot cities designated by the Ministry of Natural Resources for the redevelopment of underutilized land, ushering in a new phase of making good use of existing land resources. To synergistically drive the redevelopment of underutilized land, our city, at the top-level design, has forged a collaborative working paradigm spearheaded by city leaders, involving concerted efforts among 21 authorities and joint impetus from 16 districts. This has transformed natural resource management from the erstwhile "one-party management and multi-party utilization" approach to a regime where all parties share responsibilities. The natural resources and urban-rural development sectors have inventoried available resources via a city-wide stock resource survey. Aligning with redevelopment aspirations and implementation headway, the mapping and database-building for the initial 197 projects, encompassing 62,500 mu (about 10,296 acres) of underutilized land, have been accomplished. Simultaneously, by prioritizing "evaluation, entity identification, strategic planning, and operation", four inventories have been crafted to precisely pinpoint issues, requirements, resources, and tasks. Thus, comprehensive blueprints for redevelopment projects have been devised to underpin the redevelopment drive.

Changes are already unfolding. In the 21 Block of Qingshan District, the cooperative renovation model for old and dilapidated buildings, featuring "resident leadership, government support, and market operation", has effectively spurred the innovation of urban renewal patterns in the context of high urbanization. In Xiangyang Education Industrial Park of Hanyang District, via the innovative approval approach of "integrating planning, construction and management", social capital has been introduced by leveraging the industrial land of urban villages to erect an education industrial park, thus successfully revitalizing such land. In Wugang Yungu · 606 Industrial Park of Hongshan District, the miscellaneous old factories and families residential areas have been upgraded. With the historic culture preserved, industries have been infused and enterprises lured, transforming the park into a stylish new landmark. "Multiple development explorations of underutilized land, including industrial renovation, revitalization of urban village industrial land and renovation of historical areas, are being propelled across different regions of Wuhan," stated the person-in-charge from Wuhan Natural Resources Conservation and Utilization Center.

The person-in-charge from the Bureau stated that on April 23, Wuhan, as a model city, presented itself at the national pilot work review symposium and shared its exemplary pilot practices which were incorporated into the Crucial Government Affairs Bulletin issued by the General Office of Hubei Provincial People's Government. Looking ahead, Wuhan will remain engaged in propelling the specific undertakings of the pilot initiative, perpetually furnishing the "Wuhan Model" for the quadrennial redevelopment of underutilized land.

Since the institutional restructuring, a significant shift from "physical integration" to "synergistic fusion" is underway. The Bureau has tagged 2024 as the "Year of Service Upgrade" and the "Year of Challenge Tackling", devising pertinent implementation plans that detail 106 specific measures and work tasks. The newly established Planning and Strategy Department is coordinating the creation of the Overall Planning for Urban-rural Development Projects, synchronizing goals, space-time elements, key factors, and progress of comprehensive urban construction projects to ensure precise and smooth implementation. The Natural Resource Ownership Right Department is developing the Research on the Framework System of Natural Resources Asset Allocation and Implementation Plan in Wuhan, selecting applicable scenarios and incorporating natural resources such as mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands into a holistic study. After "A CITY OF DESIGN PORTAL" work was transferred, the Bureau is leveraging a higher platform to enhance this international "prestigious brand", promoting events like Wuhan Design Day, Wuhan International Creative Design Contest, and International Street Design Challenge. The Drawing Review, Fire Safety, and Energy Conservation Department is driving the establishment of a pilot city for intelligent construction and an intelligent construction industry chain, formulating the Special Implementation Plan for Carbon Peak in the Building Sector in Wuhan to achieve carbon peak in building sector before 2030. The Quality and Safety Management Department is refining standards and norms, compiling a guidance booklet for work safety and housekeeping to firmly safeguard the quality and safety bottom lines in housing construction projects. All tasks by all departments under the Bureau are advancing steadily, transitioning orderly, and integrating deeply.

New models: Confronting and solving real problems during planning

Adapting to the new circumstances, the Bureau has acted proactively, making remarkable strides in organizational paradigms. It has set up multiple innovation hubs to advance deep integration of sci-tech innovation, industrial upgrading, cultural creativity with urban development.

On March 28, the Bureau launched Wuhan Natural Resources Innovation and R&D Center. Targeting the orientation of "Three Platforms, One Base, One Think Tank", the center is the first of its kind among national sci-tech innovation bodies based on IT application of natural resource industry. The center acts as a municipal pilot and ministry-level & province-level cooperation pilot under the China Spatial Planning Observation Network (CSPON) of the Ministry of Natural Resources, and engages in the ministry-level intelligent land sci-tech innovation work and the natural resource industry's large-model R&D. Meanwhile, it drives the setup of innovation platforms like the Key Laboratory of Urban Simulation under the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Wuhan Branch of the Engineering Technology Innovation Center for National Land and Space Big Data under the Ministry of Natural Resources. The same day also saw the establishment of the Qingshan Service Center, bolstering the "district bureau leading at the frontline, municipal bureau providing guidance and guarantee, public institutions offering strong support" system to meet new-era demands and fuel urban transformation via planning shifts.

On July 16, New Quality Productive Force Research Center and the PLANNING Cultural and Creative Center, instituted by Wuhan Planning & Design Institute (Wuhan Transportation Development Strategy Institute), were inaugurated concurrently. The person-in-charge of the Bureau enthused on-site that, amid the critical juncture of sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation, the urban development paradigm was hastening its shift; and that the founding of these two centers represented a pivotal stride in propelling industry advancement.

Honing internal strengths and augmenting professional skills. The New Quality Productive Force Research Center stands in contrast to traditional planning focused on target blueprints and incremental growth. The center fulfills the dual demands of integrating "space with industry" and "planning with strategizing", aiming to "craft implementable industrial blueprints and devise inviting investment zones", and it is also dedicated to forging an "industrial planning think tank and implementation platform" empowered with full-process planning and execution acumen. Already, it has issued five think tank reports and partaken in two significant projects of the Ministry of Natural Resources. In lockstep with the "open-minded planning" concept, it enlisted 22 cross-disciplinary experts for a "Distinguished Expert Repository" and sealed strategic alliances with 16 institutions for a "Collaborating Institution Repository", jointly establishing a novel industrial implementation platform spanning "industrial planning, spatial layout, investment attraction planning, project rollout, and investment-financing operations", with an aim to spur the cultivation and growth of new quality productive forces in Wuhan.

Guided by the new methodology, a slew of major planning projects are in progress.

Rooted in the national new development paradigm, the Bureau spearheads the formulation of the Strategic Plan of Wuhan, zeroing in on deciphering what the city "can achieve", "should undertake" and "must pursue". Aligning with the Outline of the National Land & Space Plan (2021-2035), Wuhan, as a pilot city for safeguarding river and lake water spaces, pioneers exploration into demarcation and governance protocols. Implementing provincial strategies and planning, it refines lake-based urban layout, and devises and rolls out the Donghu Lake spatial structure planning, whose model is applied to Tangxun Lake and Houhu Lake. Echoing the call for "transformation of three advantages" of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 14th CPC Wuhan Municipal Committee, and leveraging the internationally important Chenhu Lake Wetland, it pioneers a "narrow-focus, long-chain, high-value" conversion avenue to actualize the ecological worth of wetland resources.

As Yang Baojun, Chairman of the Urban Planning Society of China, stated at the China Urban Planning Annual Conference in Wuhan in September 2023, urban planning endeavors to tackle issues, generates values and fuels high-quality urban growth. The natural resources and urban-rural development sectors in Wuhan are proactively striving to "pursue the right course, confront and resolve practical problems, and pinpoint the future development pathway".

New endeavors: Boosting urban efficiency via sci-tech innovation

The progression of major projects depends on sci-tech innovation breakthroughs. In frontier domains such as AI, big industrial models, national land & space planning and monitoring, carbon metrology, low-altitude economy and vehicle-road-cloud integration, the Bureau actively explores and boldly innovates, harnessing scientific means to augment urban management efficacy.

Targeting the "dual-carbon" goal, Wuhan Geomatics Institute, in this year's April, led the establishment of the country's first carbon metrology center in natural resource sector, namely, Wuhan Carbon Accounting Center of Hubei Natural Resources. The center deeply participates in top-level dual-carbon designs at ministerial and provincial levels, actively exploring the "ecological carbon sink" area. "Starting a new carbon journey", the center, based on natural resources and urban-rural development, spreads to multiple industries, forming an integrated full-chain carbon business covering "monitoring, metrology, evaluation, consulting, and platforms". Lingshan Mining Area, Wuhan's first reclamation pilot, largely completed its first phase after three years of restoration. With nearly 31 tons of carbon sink, it signals robust development potential. In the low-altitude economy domain, the "Urban Smart Eye" system is improving. It spearheads explorations in natural resources, water stewardship, and work safety, churning out low-altitude remote sensing solutions such as "Urban Smart Eye" + mapping backup, arable land protection, and construction project management. These underpin the blueprint for a new low-altitude government affairs supervision model and catalyze the fusion of the "Urban Smart Eye" with digital cities and governments. In July, Wuhan clinched a spot in the first batch of "vehicle-road-cloud integration" pilot cities. Leveraging high-precision maps and 3D real-scene technology from the natural resources and urban-rural development sectors, it will drive the transformation and development of intelligent connected vehicles (ICV).

    Meanwhile, the Bureau is striving to "forge the country's premier city for government services", instituting a raft of innovations centered on optimizing experiences for enterprises and the public. By devising the Work Plan for Reforming Approval Processes in Natural Resources and Urban-Rural Development and capitalizing on institutional reform, it has revamped the full life-cycle management of engineering projects to meet market demands, hastening project initiation. At the government service window at the Citizens' Service Center, it provides a service model in which applications are accepted at the front desk, categorized and reviewed at the back office, and completed at the window. This has transformed their function from handling separate tasks to completing one thing in a more efficient manner, which further improves the service and support capabilities of government services related to natural resources and urban-rural development. Moreover, with administrative approvals and technical services in natural resources, urban-rural planning, and urban-rural development as the linchpin, it has charted the 2024 approval flowcharts for three project types: society-invested housing, government-invested housing, and government-invested municipal works, which now require 32, 37, and 30 working days respectively, trimming 41, 50, and 24 days from the 2019 benchmarks. In the first half of 2024, it topped the provincial third-party evaluation of the business environment in the natural resource sector.

Since this year, the Bureau has rolled out a series of optimized service initiatives, including "cloud-based registration", "integrated registration across the Wuhan Metropolitan Area", "self-service registration", and "AI customer service". By bolstering digital capabilities online and enhancing service quality offline, these emerging models have substantially augmented enterprises' and the public's satisfaction and experience in property registration. "Various cloud-based registration services have brought us tremendous convenience. We're highly gratified, since there is no more running around for a single registration, saving both time and energy!" a service seeker remarked.

In June, the Bureau, jointly with Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Housing and Urban Renewal, launched the Several Opinions on Real Estate Registration of Retained Buildings in Urban Renewal (Trial Implementation), forging a full-process service paradigm from planning to registration that significantly boosted the protection, renewal, and revitalization of historic, retained buildings.

New perspectives: Leading the new trend of industry development

Facing new challenges in the era, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have put forward new requirements for urban work, advocating that "we should uphold the notion of people constructing their cities and cities serving the people, enhance the standards of urban planning, construction and governance, and expedite the transformation of development patterns for megacities and megalopolises. We should implement urban renewal initiatives, fortify urban infrastructure, and forge liveable, resilient and intelligent cities."

Amid new historical opportunities, the Bureau is delving into and implementing the guiding principles of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee. Keeping instructions in mind and shouldering the mission, it is pressing forward resolutely and taking practical actions to fuel the acceleration of the "transformation of three advantages" and rejuvenate Wuhan's prominence in the new era. In its 2024 mid-year work summary meeting, the Bureau stipulated that it must target the annual goals wholeheartedly, remaining confident and energetic, and benchmarking to drive tangible results across all fronts. For underperforming economic indicators and lagging performance targets, extraordinary efforts must be marshaled to catch up, guaranteeing a sterling year-end report. It must also deepen reforms to spur innovation, mustering the courage and resolve to break the deadlock through reform, and adopting inventive thinking and broadened horizons. By centering on devising more pragmatic plans, championing more efficient land use, offering more pinpointed services, and enforcing more efficacious supervision, it must propel the full implementation and fruition of reform initiatives in natural resources management, national land & space planning, and urban-rural construction development. Moreover, it must fortify work ethics to enhance efficacy. Seizing the special rectification drive as an opportunity, it must intensify work style refinement across the board, further bolster the sense of responsibility and zero in on work execution. It must perpetually upgrade services and surmount conflicts, and work to uplift all undertakings to new heights and achieve extraordinary feats.

Looking ahead, the person-in-charge from the Bureau advocates adhering to the green development philosophy, upholds good work style and lifestyle and performs quality tasks. Concurrently, the Bureau staff are enjoined to possess a high stance, profound thoughts, resolute execution, and attentive service, through which the Bureau will lead the trend in the industry and fuel Wuhan's expeditious ascension as a national central city.