Recently, Wan Qingliang, former member of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and former Party Secretary of Guangzhou, was investigated and removed from office on suspicion of serious disciplinary and legal violations. A well-known urban planner in Guangdong criticized the "official involved" on Weibo for lacking common sense, calling the planning "crazy and arrogant"—digging lakes on hilltops and building hundred-meter-wide avenues in mountainous areas.

"Planning, planning, drawing on paper." Behind the experts' "shelling" of officials, various chaos in urban planning in recent years is highlighted.

"One emperor, one planning," local leaders become "gods of planning"

"Because of the setbacks in the Guangzhou Sino-Singapore Knowledge City planning, Liu Thai Ker, the father of Singapore's planning, said: 'Don't call me the father of planning anymore; I encountered a god of planning in Guangzhou.' Most officials involved do not respect science, do not know common sense, dig large lakes on hilltops, build hundred-meter-wide avenues in mountainous areas—crazy and arrogant." Recently, Yuan Qifeng, a professor at the School of Geography and Planning at Sun Yat-sen University, blasted the "official involved" on Weibo for not understanding planning, sparking social attention.

In an interview with reporters, Yuan Qifeng said: "The project to build a ring-island light rail in Haizhu District, Guangzhou, is clearly unreasonable. The technical difficulty of building a light rail by the river is imaginable. This neither solves traffic problems nor increases development land, but instead destroys the riverside green space—what is the purpose? However, there is no turning back once the arrow is shot. Operating the light rail costs over a hundred million yuan annually, with no passenger flow support, costs cannot be recovered—isn't this creating a trap for public finances?"

In recent years, "muddle-headed planning" has frequently been exposed across the country: from the construction of an airport in Hubei Shennongjia, a "world ecological treasure trove," which triggered public criticism for neglecting ecological protection; in 2013, Jinan planned to build a commercial real estate project on the "mass grave" site of Japanese invasion, which was stopped only after public criticism...

A staff member of a planning department said: "'One emperor, one planning.' Each leader has different visions, thinking, and even interests, and generally does not continue the predecessor's plans. Some officials need political achievements when taking office, so they modify previous plans and propose new concepts. Subordinates who 'follow the superiors' help with 'self-justifying' arguments and promote seemingly legal procedures."

"Interest-driven motives make some local officials 'protective umbrellas' for unreasonable or even illegal projects. If a project is prohibited from entering a certain industry, they use 'edge-ball' tactics to change the name and break through; and projects that are actually under regulation are covered up with a concept or theme. For example, in many places, land is enclosed in the name of building cultural and creative industrial parks, but what is actually done is real estate development." He said.

Yuan Qifeng believes that the emergence of these chaos is mainly because some local leaders regard themselves as the city's "chief planners," while professionals who truly understand planning have become drawing tools. For some "whimsical" plans, leaders euphemistically call it "politics."

Yuan Qifeng said that the Guangzhou Urban Planning Commission originally had a standing committee meeting, but because many projects failed to pass expert review, it was abolished. The current committee is chaired by the mayor, with departments of land, housing and urban-rural development, and planning participating. Experts are mostly "obedient," and rejection cases rarely occur; the government feels this is "more efficient and controllable." Yuan Qifeng himself was disqualified as a member precisely because he was "disobedient."

"The role of the urban planning committee was originally to reduce administrative discretion. Such a change greatly reduces its effectiveness," Yuan Qifeng said.

Approval becomes a "numbers game" of power-for-money transactions

Reporters found that the reason some leaders are happy to be "gods of planning" is closely related to benefit transfer. There are mainly two ways of power rent-seeking:

   　——Changing the floor area ratio

Floor area ratio—a small change in the number can bring rolling wealth to developers.

In April this year, Lei Ting, former deputy department-level assistant mayor of Maoming City, Guangdong Province, was sentenced by the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court to 16 years in prison for bribery, accepting bribes, and abuse of power.

The court found that from 2007 to 2008, while serving as director of the Maoming City Planning Bureau, Lei Ting, without research demonstration and approval by the planning committee, arbitrarily decided to modify the floor area ratio and other important indicator values of real estate projects such as "Bishuiwan," illegally increasing the floor area ratio, causing major losses to national interests of over 110 million yuan.

——Changing land use

According to the Guangdong Provincial Procuratorate, in the case of Chen Wendong, former director of the Suixi County Housing and Urban-Rural Planning and Construction Bureau in Zhanjiang City, and Shu Qu, deputy director, handled in 2013, the two, when the reported use of the Suixi Royal International Hotel did not match the land use certificate and the overall plan of Suixi County, and without handling change procedures, paying land transfer fees and deed taxes, illegally approved the hotel's construction report, resulting in losses of state-owned land transfer fees and deed taxes totaling 10.88 million yuan.

Hu Jun, former deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Planning and Land Resources Administration, who accepted bribes of over 5.04 million yuan, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by the court. The prosecution alleged that Hu Jun helped bribe-givers undertake planning and design projects and construction decoration projects, approved the modified overall plan of a project to increase construction land area, and even helped remove a plot from the list of idle land announcements.

A principal of a private university in southern China told reporters that the school had already obtained approval for 600 mu of educational land in the local high-tech zone. Recently, because a leader wanted to introduce an enterprise, the plan was arbitrarily changed, and part of the educational land was changed to enterprise land. "It had previously been demonstrated by the planning department and approved, can it be invalidated immediately just because of a leader's word?" he asked.

　　A chairman of a private school who has "run" planning procedures revealed that to successfully "change" the plan and secure a plot, one must at least find the top leader of the planning bureau or the municipal leader in charge. "If you can get the municipal party secretary to speak, then of course it's all green lights! Otherwise, even if a contract is signed and hundreds of millions of yuan in land compensation are paid, approval may not be granted for a long time, and the project cannot start."

Science and democracy are the "two hands" of urban planning

　　"Science and democracy are the 'two hands' of urban planning; it cannot be that whoever has the bigger official position has the final say," Yuan Qifeng said. "In the planning process, full demonstration is needed so that experts' opinions are truly reflected. Prevent the 'patriarchal system' in planning decisions and avoid some leading cadres unscrupulously catering to developers' interests."

Wang Qing, associate professor at the School of Government and Public Affairs at Sun Yat-sen University, suggested that some large construction projects involving public interests should be approved by the People's Congress. Ensure the combination of scientific decision-making and democratic decision-making in systems and procedures.

Some grassroots planning personnel pointed out that currently, the planning evaluation systems made by departments such as the Development and Reform Commission are mostly formalistic. They suggest establishing a "top leader" accountability system, including auditing, project evaluation, and post-event supervision.

At the same time, the process of formulating and publicizing plans should be clearly defined. If a plan is to be changed, it must go through the People's Congress or social hearings, and cannot be changed arbitrarily internally. If changes are truly necessary, they must be reported to higher authorities for record and detailed reasons explained.