Abadan city lies within the Arvand Free Zone, amendments to its detailed plan and land-use changes during the study period were reviewed under the Article 8 mechanism of the Arvand Free Zone. This study analyzes the performance of Article 8 Commission decisions in guiding land-use changes and examines their relationship with Abadan Municipality's issuance of building permits that do not conform to the approved detailed plan. The study is applied in purpose and employs a descriptive-analytical approach based on documentary analysis. The dataset comprises 43 Article 8 Commission decisions issued between 2018 and 2024 and 135 building permits involving violations or non-compliance with the detailed plan, identified from the beginning of 2024 to the end of the first half of 2025. The data were analyzed through a three-level framework of “plan, decision, and implementation.” The findings show that commercial and residential uses constituted the dominant direction of land-use change, accounting for 90.7% of the reviewed decisions. Building-permit analysis further indicates that non-compliance extended beyond land use to density, building height, number of floors, parking requirements, site coverage, setbacks, and street alignment. The identification of 349 instances of non-compliance across 135 permits demonstrates a multidimensional gap between detailed-plan regulations and municipal implementation practices. At the implementation level, municipal issuance of non-compliant building permits reveals part of the divergence between approved regulations and development practice. Accordingly, the study emphasizes the extent to which Article 8 Commission decisions and municipal implementation are consistent with the logic of the detailed plan and the principles of urban development control.