- Towards a new paradigm in development control- low carbon city zoning codes for Beijing    356 kb by    YIP, Stanley C T | stanley.yip@arup.com    Short Outline The paper discusses the barriers for implementing low carbon cities under the current Chinese planning system, and proposes the development of low carbon city zoning codes for development control, based on a project case study in Beijing China. Abstract Managing the threat of climate change on our society has recently triggered off a series of new thoughts and debates around the world on what planners should do. Our cities, our economies and our infrastructure will all need to be changed in order to adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change. One key focus is on how planning decisions will help on reducing carbon emissions and stabilizing greenhouse gases. Specifically, city leaders, politicians and planners will need innovation, if not revolution, in the approaches and standards on how to plan, design, construct and manage our cities. This paper will first provide an overarching view on the impacts of the climate change challenge on the cities, and the reasons why this is posing a historical challenge (and opportunity) for the city planners and decision makers. The discussions will then move on to identifying the barriers for the planning and implementation of low carbon cities in China under the current statutory planning system in China, as well as the need of new planning decision making tools. The paper then proposes an innovative approach in the development of a set of new low carbon city zoning codes (focused on energy efficiency, water and waste managemen for site specific planning standards )as a tool for plan making, management and development control for the City of Beijing, China. A case study based on a recently completed 500 ha project in Beijing will be used to illustrate the proposals. Keywords Low Carbon Cities Zoning Codes Chinese Statutory Planning Syatems Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2009: Low Carbon Cities   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper