To align with the national requirements for advancing the construction of embedded service facilities and create high-quality urban living spaces in Guangzhou, the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources recently issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Planning and Construction of Public Service Facilities and Improving the Level of Livelihood Security Services (hereinafter referred to as the Guiding Opinions), forming a more systematic, innovative and flexible “policy toolbox” for public service facilities.
Following the approach of “sorting out existing measures + highlighting innovative policies” and adhering to the core principles of “deeper embedding, wider coverage, more flexible forms and faster approval”, the Guiding Opinions include 25 specific measures covering the planning, construction, renewal and management of public service facilities. It fully responds to the growing diversified and high-quality living needs of citizens, and explores the in-depth proposition of “what to allocate, how to allocate and how to manage” public services in Guangzhou’s megacity.
From Fragmentation to Systematization: Realizing the Upgrade of Governance Capacity
In recent years, the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources has continuously improved the planning standards for supporting public facilities, optimized the approval process, issued the Regulations on the Control Detailed Planning and Management of Community Public Service Facilities on Independent Land in Guangzhou, as well as the first to eighth batches of “benefiting enterprises and people” measures for planning and resources, all of which have provided sufficient planning and resource guarantees for fulfilling people’s livelihood commitments. The primary highlight of this Guiding Opinions is to deeply integrate the requirements related to public services in the city’s current laws, regulations and policies into a clear full-life-cycle policy framework of “planning-construction-management”, interspersed with innovative concepts and practices adapted to the new era, thus realizing the leap of Guangzhou’s public service facilities planning and construction from “point-based exploration” to “systematic policy implementation”.
Taking the 15-minute walking accessibility of public service facilities as a basic unit has always been the core concept of public service planning and construction. This Guiding Opinions goes beyond building a generalized “living circle”. On the basis of consolidating the “15-minute community living circle”, it expands three types of thematic service circles, namely the “life service circle”, “national fitness circle” and “health and elderly care circle”. It coordinates and optimizes the layout of service facilities such as culture, education, sports, medical care, elderly care and commerce, and builds a high-quality living circle that is accessible to everyone, everywhere and at all times.
Among them, the “life service circle” creates a “one-stop” community living scene, promotes the integration of Party and government services, the integration of services for “the elderly and children”, and the integration of public welfare and business functions, realizing the coexistence of “warmth” and “vitality” in public spaces. The “national fitness circle” taps into the potential of urban “leftover spaces”, promotes the functional infiltration and scene integration of sports and fitness facilities under viaducts, in park green spaces and idle lands, actively revitalizes the existing sports resources, and provides more inclusive fitness spaces for the society. The “health and elderly care circle” safeguards “age-friendly health”, encourages the adjacent layout and functional complementarity of community elderly care, medical care and childcare facilities, improves the composite system of health care, basic diagnosis and treatment, rehabilitation and elderly care, and realizes the efficient utilization of resources.
From Standardization to Quality Improvement: Creating an Age-Friendly Space
How to ensure that facilities are not only “well-built”, but also “well-used” and “willing to be used”? The Guiding Opinions provide a refined and high-quality answer.
More Flexible Layout Model
It promotes a layout model combining centralized “community complexes” and decentralized “functional clusters”. For newly transferred residential land parcels and urban village renovation projects, it encourages the allocation of integrated and centralized neighborhood centers. In stock areas constrained by land resources, it encourages facilities with similar functions to form small-scale clusters, and fills the gaps in an embedded manner.
More Targeted Service Objects
It puts forward differentiated allocation strategies and scale coefficients for different groups such as the elderly, children, young people, industrial workers and foreign residents. For “the elderly and children”, it strengthens the supply of medical care, elderly care, childcare and other facilities, and promotes the child-friendly transformation and safety protection of activity spaces. For young people, it increases the allocation scale of cultural and sports facilities and public spaces. Around industrial parks, it creates “industrial neighborhood centers” with functions such as lecture halls, exhibition halls and maker spaces.
More Diversified Supply Types
It enriches the supply types of public service facilities, innovatively sets up a variety of service facilities, and classifies the facilities into three categories: “basic guarantee type”, “quality improvement type” and “characteristic guidance type”. It not only ensures that there is no shortage of basic demand-oriented facilities such as education and medical care, but also provides the possibility for the implementation of “new-generation” supporting facilities such as international community service stations, shared canteens and low-altitude take-off and landing points.
More Three-Dimensional Functional Integration
It vigorously advocates the composite form of “vertical superposition, horizontal compatibility and time-sharing sharing”. In a single building, the first floor can be a fresh food supermarket, the second floor a Party and mass service station, and the third floor a rooftop sports field. A multi-functional hall can be used as a community classroom during the day and a residents’ dance studio at night, fundamentally encouraging the intensive and efficient use of space.
Focusing on the Characteristics of Megacities: Strengthening Multi-Channel and Full-Chain Supply Guarantees
With the arrival of the urban “stock era”, Guangzhou, as a megacity, must tap into the potential of stock and make breakthroughs through innovation. The Guiding Opinions focus on strengthening multi-channel and full-chain supply guarantee measures.
Utilization of Stock Resources
With the approval of the relevant industry competent departments, it supports the increase of the building area of public service facilities in under-construction or completed projects, and the increased part may not be included in the original calculated floor area. Residential districts, commercial office buildings and industrial plants can be converted into public service facilities serving communities or industrial parks on the premise of meeting relevant requirements.
Flexible Management and Control
Without weakening the overall service capacity of the area, it allows facilities to reserve no more than 30% of the building area as flexible facility space, and the specific functions can be clarified during the construction or use stage. In the future, combined with changes in the community’s population structure and actual demand, it also allows functional adjustments between different public welfare facilities.
Accelerated Approval Process
On the premise of meeting planning requirements, technical specifications and facility carrying capacity, the conversion of commercial land to public welfare land (excluding NIMBY and aversive facilities), the adjustment between community public service facility lands, and the adjustment or replacement of the location of community public service facility lands within the same detailed planning unit can be handled in accordance with simplified procedures.
Optimized Operation and Management
It allows large-scale public facilities such as museums, libraries and stadiums to allocate supporting convenient functions at a ratio of 5%—10%, providing space guarantee for exploring the sustainable operation of facilities in the next step. Supporting commercial service facilities can introduce relevant enterprises with investment promotion and operation capabilities for unified operation through modes such as overall, building-by-building or floor-by-floor transfer and cooperation.
