Two Ministries Back Short-Term Use of Idle Construction Land for Cultural Tourism Facilities

Key points

• The Ministry of Natural Resources and the National Forestry and Grassland Administration issued a notice on supporting high-quality and efficient development of the service sector, strengthening coordination between territorial space planning and natural resource policy.
• The notice promotes short-term use of idle land: subject to municipal or county government assessment and on the premise of protecting legitimate rights, ensuring safety and not affecting long-term planning, temporary-use rules may be formulated to advance short-term use of idle construction land.
• Short-term use is focused on building distinctive cultural tourism and other public-service facilities, aligned with planning implementation sequencing.
• The notice calls for strengthening territorial space support for the service sector by coordinating incremental and existing space and reasonably arranging space for life-related services such as culture, tourism and sports.
• For scattered supporting service facilities outside urban development boundaries in country parks, ecological green spaces, forest health bases (forest land) and green open spaces, 'point-form land use' may be applied where territorial space planning and use control permit.