Abstract

Low-rise terraced housing constitutes a major segment of Taiwan’s residential market, yet stakeholder perception differences during residential development planning remain insufficiently understood, particularly regarding sustainability considerations. In this study, we investigate cognitive gaps among developers, homebuyers, and construction professionals across six planning dimensions, including site selection, housing price, capital capacity, construction risk, building planning, and sustainability. A structured questionnaire survey was conducted in Changhua County, Taiwan, yielding 176 valid responses (37 developers, 92 homebuyers, and 47 construction professionals). Data were analyzed using Cronbach’s α reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), chi-square tests, one-way ANOVA, Fisher’s LSD post hoc comparisons, and robustness analyses using ANCOVA and Tukey’s HSD. Significant stakeholder perception differences were identified for 15 of the 19 planning factors (p < 0.05). Supply-side stakeholders consistently prioritized construction cost, financing capacity, and construction risk, whereas homebuyers placed greater emphasis on transportation convenience, living amenities, spatial quality, and sustainability-related attributes, particularly green building certification and energy efficiency. Construction risk exhibited the largest cognitive gaps, with large effect sizes for construction difficulty (η2 = 0.450) and government regulation (η2 = 0.454). Within the sustainability dimension, governance transparency remained non-significant, suggesting that governance awareness has not yet matured into a differentiated stakeholder concern. Based on these findings, we propose the Stakeholder Cognitive Gap Framework (SCGF) as a conceptual and diagnostic framework for organizing stakeholder perception patterns. The findings contribute to understanding stakeholder cognitive divergence in residential development planning and provide practical implications for sustainable housing policy, developer decision-making, and participatory planning in non-metropolitan housing markets.

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