Since 2015, the Chinese central government has implemented the new normal development strategy to reduce construction land use at a national level. This strategy aims to optimize the process of land-use. In previous studies, land-use pattern optimization focused on scenarios of increasing constructed land surface; however, scenarios of constructed land surface decrease are rare. In studies of the latter, the basic considerations include how and where it is possible to reduce construction land, the amount of construction land that should be reduced, and the theoretical base of this reduction. In order to answer such questions, in this study, an innovative approach, consisting of three main steps, has been designed from the perspective of targeting species habitat network optimization:(a) To improve the quality of core habitats, the buffer zone for each core habitat was simulated. Urban-rural construction land, as well as, dry land located within buffer zones, were converted into arbor forest. (b) To decrease human disturbance to migration corridors of targeted species, each corridor was set as a belt, with a width of 200 m. Either urban-rural construction land, or dry land located within corridor belts were converted into arbor forest. (c) To ensure that the converted dry land was balanced, the following two steps were designed:in step 1, core ecological zones over the study areas were identified using the method of ecological safety zoning. In step 2, urban-rural construction land located within core ecological zones were converted into paddy land for the compensation of dry land loss. This compensation could be implemented through rural residential land consolidation projects. In the Su-Xi-Chang region, the core of the Yangtze River Delta region and the Little Egret (Egretta garzetta) were chosen as study area and targeted species, respectively. The results show that (a) only a small amount of urban-rural construction land was located within core habitats of the little egret. Most core habitat sizes were smaller than the average size that would indicate core habitats have been fragmented seriously. The amount of reduction in urban-rural construction land surface in migration corridors is of 6542.1 ha. It represents over 99% of the total reduction amount, which indicates that migration corridors have been seriously affected by human disturbance. The amounts of urban-rural construction land surface reduction and land surface converted into paddy land in core ecological zones were of 213.7 ha and 208.7 ha, respectively. The total amount of construction land surface reduced in the study area was of 6755.8 ha. (b) By applying the designed approach, sizes of core habitats, as well as the safety of migrating corridors for targeted species, have been increased, which indicates that the goal of habitat network optimization has been reached. Meanwhile, the total amount of construction land has been reduced, which also indicates that the goal of regional land-use pattern optimization has been reached.