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The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors for enhancing social sustainability of the conservation of built heritage projects and to highlight the importance of addressing social sustainability in urban conservation.

First of all, a list of social sustainability factors is compiled from the international literature and then verified by a panel of experts in the field of heritage conservation and laymen through a pilot study in Hong Kong. Afterwards, through a questionnaire survey carried out in Hong Kong for an urban conservation project, the citizens' responses were obtained and evaluated. Results were derived from factor analysis.

The results indicated that social considerations should be incorporated for achieving social sustainability in urban heritage conservation. “Educational and local cultural promotion means”, “Meanings of the place”, “Social inclusion and psychological needs” and “Public participation and opportunity for skills development” were found to be the significant underlying factors for enhancing social sustainability of the case study project.

The underlying social factors found in this study can help enhance planning, management and implementation in conservation projects that should promote social well being in society.

The case study provides a valid basis for an interesting analysis on the relevance of the social sustainability aspects to an urban conservation project that also provides insights for other urban conservation projects of a similar nature. The factors identified can form an evaluation framework to measure the social sustainability level of a significant urban conservation and revitalization project in practice.

This study is founded on an assessment model derived by the authors in previous studies. It aims to identify the applicability of the model by using it to assess the urban design aspects of two local urban renewal projects against a set of pre‐determined performance indicators.

First of all, a brief on the details of the assessment model is provided. Then, this study introduces how case study can evaluate the effectiveness of the model in assessing the government‐led urban renewal projects in the real world. Afterwards, it identifies the way of selecting appropriate urban renewal projects for the case study, sets out the process of the assessment, and highlights the assessment results and its implication.

The case study conducted here has proved that the assessment model is able to produce reliable and valid assessment results for evaluation of the sustainability performance of local urban renewal projects. In addition to the assessment of the overall performance, the model also helps to identify the deficiencies of the renewal projects, and the level of satisfaction of the affected persons and the concerned parties to the renewal projects being assessed.

By assessing the design of two pre‐selected urban renewal projects against individual indicators through case study, it can be ensured that the model derived by the authors in previous studies is theoretically and practically feasible. In addition, this study has demonstrated that the model is able to measure the design quality and the sustainability level of individual urban renewal project in real life context.