A Cross-strait Comparative Study On Floor Area Ratio Adjustment In The Dynamic Management Of Regulatory Detailed Planning

Urban planning is a public service that entails considerable costs. Sincegovernments typically have very limited budgets for urban planning, it is oftenimpossible to achieve all of a city’s planning goals at once, and they must beconstantly adjusted to suit the temporal and spatial circumstances. In recentyears, trends such as governments attaching greater importance to publicopinion and fair disclosure of information have made a rigid, regulation-basedmodel of urban management extremely challenging. As a result, a staged"dynamic management" process is becoming the mainstream in today’s urbanplanning and urban management practices.A review of the goals in dynamic management on the Mainland side and theTaiwan side shows that both have the basic aim of creating a win-win outcomefor both the public and private sectors through positive interaction. While themainland adopts the method of "regulatory detailed planning", Taiwan utilizesthe mechanism of "urban design review" under the "detailed plan". In addition,dynamic management on both sides is developed based on game theory, wherethe government raises the development requirements while giving appropriateincentives. The raised requirements are determined according to the needs of theindividual cities, while the incentives usually take the form of floor area ratioadjustment.What kind of incentives should the government offer in the implementationof dynamic management? Are there any other alternatives besides floor arearatio adjustment? If adjustment is required, how may adjustment be quantified?Are there ways to build in flexibility for different places? Once the localgovernment has granted adjustment to a development project, can other projectswith the same criteria enjoy the same treatment? Furthermore, in today’s heateddevelopment market, local governments often raise the floor area ratios toincrease the land value, but their inability to keep the city’s overall floor area incheck causes the city’s development to go out of control. In light of this, theauthor has been engaging in discussions and consulting with governments at various levels on how to optimize the dynamic management process andenhance the quality of urban development. This paper also examines this verytheme.The paper focuses on town planning systems and legal frameworks in theMainland and supplements with experience in and reflection on Taiwan’s urbandesign review system as a reference for dynamic adjustment. A comparativeanalysis was made on500cases in urban design review conducted in Taiwan(Taipei and Kaohsiung) between2011and2012. In addition, field studies andinterviews with local experts and scholars were also conducted in Beijing andShenzhen to gain an insight into current focuses and future trends. The last partof the paper spotlights regulatory detailed planning and proposes specificrecommendations on how best to optimize dynamic management in theMainland at this stage in time, with a view to achieve the ultimate and broadergoal of a win-win outcome for both the public and private sectors.