Department of Urban Development, Taipei City Government

Taipei City formulates the Urban Design Guidelines to direct and control the fashion of its urban development. The major task of urban design control is to overcome the regulatory loophole pertaining public interface. By rigidly following the Urban Design Review framework, the Urban Development Department endeavors to control the quality of individual development cases. The approaches undertook to regulate urban design in Taipei City include:
(a) Urban Design Guidelines- the fundamental spatial regulation
Urban Design Guidelines are formulated to supervise the developments according to the culture and the characteristics of each of the newly-developed zones, the urban renewal zones, and other specialized areas. The goal is to preserve, improve and create life spaces for the citizen of Taipei. There are two significant purposes of the urban design guidelines:
(1) to protect high quality public environments and life spaces; and
(2) to create local and regional characteristics.
The regulatory content of the Urban Design Guidelines is listed below:
‧Land uses and building masses
- Minimum site area
- Intensity of land use, floor area ratio, and floor space ratio
- Development right transfer and height restriction incentives
- Permitted land uses
- Yard and lawn spaces
- Interspaces between buildings
- Building height
- Building mass
- Building types and organizations
- Underground area size
- Plaza development
‧Open Space
- Destination, size and shape of designated open spaces
- Pedestrian sidewalks created by designated building setback
- Width and connection of designated public sidewalks
- Property right of overpass and underpass
- Thoroughfare in pedestrian system
‧Urban Fabric
- Allocation of building types
- Allocation of public buildings
- Allocation of parks and open spaces
- Preservation and redevelopment of historical buildings
‧Streetscape
- Visual axis of buildings
- Street planting
- Allocation of urban furniture
- Allocation of public arts
- CIS
- Lighting system
- Commercial billboards
- Green roof
‧Services system
- Parking spaces
- Off-street loading areas
- Garbage storing sites
- Disabled accessibility
(b)Urban Design Review- development consultation
The Urban Design Review of Taipei City is the most developed land use control system in Taiwan. The function of Urban Design Review, in early days, is to compensate the deficiency and rigidity of the Architecture and Building Control regulations. Nowadays the role of Urban Design Review moves to actively control the qualities of public and private developments. For example, the Urban Design Review system can, by directing the discussion and negotiation among professionals and developers, introduce public concerns about city space and images to the benefit-oriented development cases.
Urban Design Review of Taipei City started to roll in 1982. Xin-Yi Planning District was the first review area. More review areas and review principles were created and formulated subsequently. By organizing the Urban Design Review Panel, Taipei City is able to maintain decent public spaces and quality environment.