What Role Does “Great Heritage Site” Conservation Play in Shaping Sustainable Urban Intensity Patterns? An Empirical Study from Luoyang

Ancient capital cities generally boast long urban histories, with their ancient city sites overlapping significantly with modern urban areas, thereby subjecting urban development to the dual pressures of cultural heritage conservation and extreme land resource constraints. Taking the Great Heritage Site of the Sui and Tang dynasties within the ancient capital Luoyang as an example, this study adopts indicators of urban development intensity and utilizes spatial correlation analysis, kernel density analysis, and other methods to quantify the distribution characteristics of the urban plot development intensity. It identifies the factors influencing urban sustainable development and construction due to the conservation of the Great Heritage Site and proposes optimization strategies for urban construction regulation based on this analysis. The research findings indicate that the types and areas of urban planning and construction land within and outside the conservation area of the Great Heritage Site are similar, with no significant distinctions in the indicators or the spatial distribution of the plot ratio. The main factor affecting the intensity of urban development under the conservation of the Great Heritage Site is building height. Methods such as compensating, transferring, and rewarding the plot ratio and building height beyond the influence range of the Great Heritage Site conservation overflow effect can be employed to moderately enhance the development intensity and capacity control of urban areas, thus elevating urban development levels and providing guidance for sustainable urban growth under Great Heritage Site conservation.