The Ministry of Natural Resources announced the first batch of “Holistic Land Improvement Pilot Project Best Examples” and “A Directory of Recommended Land Conservation Technologies and Models (Fourth Batch)”, recommending those practices as role models for the country. The land improvement project in Jingshan, Yuhang District, and the land conservation model of the Yuhang District high-speed rail hub were shortlisted as the cases and in the directory.

To learn and apply the experience of Zhejiang’s “Village Improvement Initiative”, the Ministry of Natural Resources launched a pilot project for holistic land improvement across the country in 2019. A total of 356 township-based projects from 25 provinces have been made pilot from day one. This is the first time that the Ministry made public the best practices in such projects nationwide, including Jingshan’s. It totals 15 cases. All of them have good experience that, by taking into account their own conditions, are encouraged to copy when it comes to staffing, planning, implementation, acceptance and post-management, and financial support.

“We’ve made Xiaogucheng, Jingshan, Caoqiao and other villages the core area for the land improvement. It is a people-centered, holistic workplan to illuminate our 13 villages’ characteristics,” claimed the land resources authority of Yuhang. They are wise policy makers, attaching importance to balanced land use and compensation, and a strategy that comprises farmland consolidation, construction land improvement, nature preservation, and cultural heritage, etc. The project has proved effective in the land use in general and the rise of life quality in rural area. It is not only a land improvement practice but a drive for more effective community administration. 

The Ministry’s call for the fourth batch of land-saving technology and model cases started in this January. It particularly centers on breakthroughs such as “stock for increment”, “underground for ground”, and “funds, technology, and data for space”. A total of 38 cases were selected.

Yuhang’s high speed railway hub, being shortlisted this time, is an advocate to the TOD philosophy. It’s made a general plan for land use targeting the train hub and its surrounding areas, i.e., an integrated solution comprised of design and development of above-ground and underground spaces, with a vision to build a complex containing both a hub station and a community. The authority has blazed a new trail in stratified supply and rights confirmation to facilitate multi-ownership and multi-dimensional spatial development, making use of the space above the rain shelters for an overlying property, which is the first in China for new railway stations. An extra 50,000-sqm space was provided thanks to the strength of the steelworks, a model case that has improved land use intensity and efficiency.

It is noted that Hangzhou has four projects shortlisted in this directory, including the well-shape parking on Miduqiao Road, the metro property of Yangliujun, the Linping District water purification plant, and Yuhang’s high-speed railway hub.