The rapid physical growth in metropolises has transformed the urban construction system from a purely technical process into a complex arena in the field of public law and spatial justice. In the metropolis of Shiraz, the lack of transparency in the licensing system, weakness in physical supervision, and the occurrence of construction violations have led to widespread conflicts between developmental interests and fundamental rights of citizens. Despite the importance of this issue, the lack of a local conceptual model for operationalizing citizen rights in construction processes is evident. The present study aims to present a “conceptual model of citizen rights in the urban construction system.” This research has a mixed (quantitative-qualitative) nature in terms of methodology. In the qualitative part, theoretical indicators have been extracted by relying on the content analysis of upstream documents, urban management criteria, and library studies. In the quantitative part, the relationships between variables in the city of Shiraz have been tested using a questionnaire and structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The research findings show that the main damages of the construction system are caused by the incomplete transition from hierarchical governance to network governance and the lack of citizen-centered monitoring mechanisms. The extracted conceptual model includes three main components: "sovereignty" (including process transparency and legal competencies), "management" (including the system of construction regulations and standards), and "social" (including active participation and citizen-centered monitoring), which, in interaction with each other, make the realization of citizen rights (including physical-environmental security and spatial justice) possible in the urban construction system. The research results explain that strengthening citizen rights in Shiraz requires a paradigm shift from "limited negative monitoring" to "positive and transparent monitoring" at all stages of the construction process.