Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the People’s Government of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Implementing Urban Renewal Action

The administrative offices of the Union, the Municipal People’s Government, the commissions, offices, departments and bureaus of the autonomous region, and major enterprises and institutions:

The implementation of urban renewal is a major decision-making arrangement made by the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, and a major strategic measure to conform to the new stage of urban development and promote the high-quality development of the city. Urban renewal is not only an important carrier to implement the new development concept, but also an important fulcrum to build a new development pattern and an important path to promote carbon neutrality in peak carbon dioxide emissions. At present, the urban development of our region has changed from large-scale incremental construction to both stock upgrading and incremental structural adjustment, and has entered an important period of urban renewal. In order to promote the implementation of urban renewal, with the consent of the people’s government of the autonomous region, we hereby put forward the following opinions.

I. General requirements

Completely, accurately and comprehensively implement the new development concept, understand, respect and conform to the laws of urban development, continuously improve the quality of urban human settlements, and promote the modernization of urban governance system and governance capacity. Promote the inclusion of Hohhot and Baotou in national pilot cities and introduce pilot programs for urban renewal; Carry out urban renewal construction demonstration, and guide cities (including Bayanhaote Town, Alashan Zuoqi, Alashan League) to implement urban renewal actions. By the end of 2023, all the cities in the whole region will form demonstration areas for renewal, and gradually expand the scope of the areas or concentrate on urban renewal. By the end of 2025, important progress has been made in urban renewal, the institutional mechanism and policy system for urban renewal have been initially formed, the urban system has been continuously improved, the urban structure, functions and layout have been gradually adjusted and optimized, the mode of urban development and construction has been accelerated, the urban living environment has been continuously improved, and "urban diseases" and outstanding urban problems have been effectively controlled.

Second, the key tasks

(1) Building a livable and comfortable city.

1. Improve the spatial layout. Promote the construction of Hubao Hubei and Chifeng and Tongliao regional central cities, accelerate the integration process of Hubao Hubei and Hubei, promote the integration of production and cities, coordinate the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin, promote the co-construction and sharing of major regional infrastructure and public service facilities, and establish a modern facility network system such as comprehensive three-dimensional transportation of urban agglomerations with perfect functions and close connection. Promote urban and rural development with counties as a unit, steadily improve the carrying capacity of small and medium-sized cities, and focus on developing small towns with characteristics.

2. Promote the transformation of old communities. In accordance with the requirements of co-construction, co-governance, sharing, basic categories should be reformed, improved categories should be reformed more, and upgrading categories should be actively promoted, the renovation plan and annual renovation plan of old residential areas should be scientifically formulated, the renovation content should be reasonably determined, and efforts should be made to solve the problem of people’s "urgent difficulties and worries". By the end of the 14 th Five-Year Plan, the renovation of old residential areas completed before the end of 2005 will be basically completed. We will intensify the energy-saving renovation, water-saving renovation, aging adaptation and barrier-free facilities renovation of existing buildings, carry out actions to make up for shortcomings in the construction of complete residential communities, actively create green communities, and improve the livable level of residents.

3. Promote the renovation of old houses. The dilapidated buildings identified by the housing administrative department can be rebuilt through renovation, reconstruction or appropriate expansion. If conditions permit, the scale of the building can be appropriately increased, complete renovation or convenience service facilities can be implemented. Encourage old buildings such as old office buildings and old commercial facilities to upgrade, adjust their functions, enhance their vitality and develop new formats. Encourage old buildings to increase fire stairs, elevators and other facilities, and make comprehensive use of qualified underground space.

4. Promote the transformation of old factory areas. For enterprises in old industrial areas, local transformation, relocation in different places and legal closure will be implemented as appropriate, so as to guide enterprises to concentrate in qualified industrial parks and promote industrial agglomeration development. Make full use of the vacated land and abandoned land, and develop modern production and living services and strategic emerging industries. Encourage the transformation of old factories and facilities, giving priority to public culture, public sports, pension and creativity industries. We will promote the functional reconstruction, environmental improvement and ecosystem restoration of old industrial plants, rationally develop and utilize industrial heritage resources, and build bases for patriotism education and popular science.

5. Implement ecological restoration and functional improvement. Fully consider the carrying capacity of resources and environment, reasonably determine the city size and population density, improve the urban ecosystem, and protect the natural features of urban mountains. Repair rivers, lakes, wetlands and other water bodies, coordinate regional watershed ecological environment management and urban construction, protect and restore urban and surrounding water space, and expand rainwater storage space. Fully tap urban idle resources, maximize the activation of urban inefficient resources, and adopt diversified operation methods to make overall planning and in-depth development of existing urban spatial resources.

(2) Building a green and low-carbon city.

1. Promote the construction of landscaping. Strengthen the construction of urban park system, greenway and slow-moving system, and build a green ecological network. Taking the construction of garden city as the starting point, we will implement the action of "300 meters to see green, 500 meters to see garden" to further strengthen the systematic and balanced comprehensive service efficiency of urban garden green space. Reasonable planning and construction of public activity spaces such as squares, theme parks and walkways will facilitate residents’ activities and promote residents’ exchanges. Strengthen the function of green space to serve residents’ daily activities, so that residents can see green space near their homes, get close to green space and cultivate their sentiments.

2. Build a green building system. Strengthen the improvement of energy efficiency of new buildings and promote the development of passive buildings with ultra-low energy consumption, near zero energy consumption and zero carbon. Promote the scale development of green buildings, expand the implementation scope of green building standards, and develop high-star green buildings. Continue to promote the energy-saving renovation of existing residential buildings and public buildings, and strengthen the promotion and application of green building materials. Cultivate the industrial base of prefabricated buildings, carry out the demonstration of prefabricated buildings, improve the technical standard system of prefabricated buildings, explore the popularization and application in the construction of affordable housing, and accelerate the development of prefabricated buildings.

3. Accelerate the implementation of clean heating. Adhere to both energy security and clean development, and implement clean heating transformation such as "coal to gas" and "coal to electricity" according to local conditions. Vigorously promote cogeneration, industrial waste heat and large-scale regional boilers and other central heating methods, actively promote medium and long-distance heating, and gradually phase out scattered coal-fired boilers. Accelerate the integration and optimization of heating sources and the networking operation of heating networks to form a multi-heat source combined heating ring network. Accelerate the energy-saving renovation of existing buildings, the renovation of shanty towns and the renovation of urban villages and suburban areas, and gradually improve the clean heating rate.

4. Standardize the classification of domestic waste. Promote the introduction of local laws and regulations on the classification of domestic waste, improve the classification management system of domestic waste, improve the classification standards, issue guidance catalogues, and explore the formulation of incentive mechanisms linked to the classification results. Standardize the classified delivery of domestic waste, improve the classified collection facilities, improve the classified transfer facilities, promote the construction of domestic waste incineration plants and kitchen waste treatment plants, and enhance the terminal processing capacity. Improve the efficiency of garbage recovery and resource utilization.

(3) Building a safe and resilient city.

1. Promote the construction of sponge cities. Improve the promotion mechanism of sponge city construction, and run the concept and requirements of sponge city construction through the whole process of project construction. Carry out the pilot project of sponge city construction, give play to the leading role of typical demonstration projects, and cooperate with the construction and transformation of new urban infrastructure, the transformation of old residential areas, the treatment of black and odorous water bodies, drainage and waterlogging prevention, and landscaping. Adhere to systematic thinking and comprehensive management, and implement the five-year action of urban waterlogging control.

2. Promote the construction of new urban infrastructure. Comprehensively improve the operational efficiency and service capacity of urban infrastructure, implement the upgrading and intelligent management of municipal infrastructure such as urban water supply, drainage, heating and gas, improve the early warning and emergency management of pipe network leakage, flood control and drainage, gas safety, and ensure the safe operation of municipal infrastructure.

3. Strengthen the examination and acceptance of engineering fire protection design. Further standardize the working procedures of fire protection design review and acceptance of construction projects, and increase the construction of fire protection design review and acceptance institutions and teams. Strengthen the supervision of fire protection design review, construction, inspection and acceptance, strengthen the investigation of hidden dangers, focus on solving problems left over from history, do a good job in the pilot work of fire protection design review and acceptance in the renovation and utilization of existing buildings, and form a replicable and scalable experience.

4. Maintain urban public safety. Improve the allocation standard of urban comprehensive disaster prevention and safety facilities, improve the emergency command system for urban earthquake resistance, road traffic and geological disasters, and improve the urban life passage system. Strengthen the construction of urban disaster prevention and refuge places, and enhance the ability to resist natural disasters, deal with emergencies and manage crises. Establish and improve the responsibility system for urban safety supervision, rationally arrange urban residential and living areas, comprehensive service areas, commercial and business areas and green leisure areas, strengthen the monitoring of major hazard sources, and eliminate major accidents.

(4) Create a smart and dynamic city.

1. Promote the construction of urban information platform. Relying on the big data platform in the autonomous region, we will accelerate the construction of the basic platform of urban information model (CIM). Comprehensively promote the in-depth application of the platform in urban physical examination, urban safety, intelligent construction, smart community and other fields. Promote the construction of urban comprehensive management service platform and improve the scientific, refined and intelligent management level of the city. Build the Internet of construction industry, and apply the technology of building information model (BIM) to improve the coordination level of architectural design, construction, operation and maintenance.

2. Conduct a general survey of underground municipal infrastructure. Fully grasp the current situation, promote prefecture-level cities to establish and improve the comprehensive management information platform of underground municipal infrastructure, meet the requirements of facilities planning and construction, operation services, emergency and disaster prevention, and deeply integrate with the CIM platform to realize the co-construction and sharing of facilities information. Establish the geographic information system of municipal drainage pipe network, and realize the informationization and account book management of the pipe network.

(5) Shaping a city with humanistic characteristics.

1. Strengthen historical and cultural protection. We will sort out the regional cultural characteristics and urban vein texture in detail, do a good job in the protection of historical and cultural cities, historical and cultural blocks and historical buildings, and establish an urban and rural historical and cultural protection and inheritance system with scientific classification, strong protection and effective management. Efforts should be made to solve the outstanding problems such as the repeated destruction and demolition of historical and cultural heritage, make overall plans for protection, utilization and inheritance, and adhere to systematic and complete protection, not only to protect single buildings, but also to protect street blocks and urban patterns, as well as to protect historical sites, natural landscapes and human environment.

2. Strengthen the control of style and features. In accordance with the architectural policy of "applicability, economy, green and beauty", the use function of buildings and the requirements of energy-saving, water-saving, land-saving, material-saving and environmental protection are highlighted, and special-shaped buildings are strictly controlled to prevent one-sided pursuit of architectural appearance. Comprehensively strengthen urban design, optimize and upgrade architectural design standards, strengthen the investigation of design responsibility, strictly control the examination and approval of architectural design, and put an end to chaos such as greed, flattery and strangeness.

Third, the work measures

(a) to carry out a comprehensive urban physical examination. Through the evaluation of urban physical examination, find out the shortcomings and weaknesses. Coordinate the management of urban planning and construction, and put forward the goals and suggestions of optimizing regional functions, improving public facilities, improving urban quality, protecting historical features, improving urban environment and improving infrastructure.

(two) the scientific preparation of the implementation plan. The people’s governments of various cities shall organize the formulation of the implementation plan for urban renewal in their respective regions, and rationally delimit the renewal areas. Considering the functional integrity, systematicness and project implementability of the district as a whole, the project construction plan of the renewal district should be compiled, and different districts should implement differentiated urban renewal strategies.

(three) to carry out the implementation effect evaluation. According to the implementation plan of urban renewal, carry out post-evaluation of implementation effect, comprehensively summarize the implementation effect, seek truth from facts to find problems, and formulate sustainable promotion measures. Carry out a survey of people’s satisfaction and let the people judge the effectiveness of urban human settlements construction.

Fourth, organizational guarantee

(1) Strengthen organizational leadership. All regions and relevant departments should fully understand the significance of implementing urban renewal actions, and establish a working mechanism for autonomous regions to make overall plans, cities to take overall responsibility, and jurisdictions to implement them. Establish an inter-office joint meeting system for the implementation of urban renewal actions in the autonomous region, and clarify departmental responsibilities and tasks. The office of the joint meeting is located in the Housing and Urban-Rural Development Department of the autonomous region. All relevant departments should do a good job of coordination, strengthen work guidance, strengthen policy support, and form a joint force for urban renewal. The people’s governments of cities should earnestly assume the main responsibility, strengthen organizational leadership and overall coordination, and promote the effectiveness of urban renewal.

(2) Strengthen policy guarantee. Innovate supporting systems such as project establishment, land, planning and approval, and form a management system and policy system that is suitable for large-scale stock upgrading and transformation. Increase the security of urban renewal projects, optimize the supply structure of new construction land, revitalize the use of existing urban construction land, give priority to urban renewal projects, and adjust the nature and use of land according to law as needed. Continue to optimize the business environment, and improve the approval efficiency of urban renewal related projects by reducing links, reducing materials and optimizing the approval process.

(3) Increase financial support. Actively strive for central subsidy funds, adjust and optimize the financial expenditure structure, and increase investment in urban renewal projects. Co-ordinate the special funds of the autonomous region and guide the financial subsidy funds to tilt towards urban renewal projects. Support local people’s governments to increase the investment of special bond funds in urban renewal projects. Give full play to the role of policy finance, innovate financial products and services, and provide sustainable financing support for urban renewal. Encourage social capital to participate in urban renewal projects.

(4) Do a good job in publicity and guidance. All regions should intensify publicity and reporting, make full use of radio and television, newspapers, internet and other media, widely publicize the policies and effects of urban renewal, and tell the story of Inner Mongolia urban renewal. It is necessary to strengthen the guidance of public opinion, report advanced experience in time, and publicize the sense of gain brought by urban renewal to the people. We should actively expand people’s participation channels and jointly create a good social atmosphere for urban renewal.

September 3, 2021

(This piece is publicly released)