In dealing with scarce land, planners often need to interact with, and sometimes confront, property right-holders to address complex property rights situations. To reinforce their position in situations of rivalrous land uses, planners can strategically use and combine different policy instruments in addition to standard land use plans. Effectively steering spatial development requires a keen understanding of these instruments of land policy.
This book not only presents how such instruments function, it additionally examines how public authorities strategically manage the scarcity of land, either increasing or decreasing it, to promote a more sparing use of resources. It presents 13 instruments of land policy in specific national contexts and discusses them from the perspectives of other countries. Through the use of concrete examples, the book reveals how instruments of land policy are used strategically in different policy contexts.
I Preface Foreword Preface II Introduction 1. Land, scarcity, and property rights 2. Land policy – how to deal with scarcity of land 3. Instruments of land policy – four types of intervention III REGULATING LAND USES WITHOUT IMPACTING PROPERTY RIGHTS 4. Reference land values in Germany: Land policy by market transparency 5. Added value capturing in Switzerland: How much is enough? 6. Land taxation in Estonia: An efficient instrument of land policy for land scarcity, equity, and ecology IV STEERING LAND USES THROUGH REGULATION IMPACTING PROPERTY RIGHTS 7. Negotiated land use plans in the Netherlands: A central instrument in Dutch ‘active’ and ‘passive’ land policy 8. Urban growth boundary in the USA: Managing land scarcity in the Portland region 9. Land readjustment in Portugal: Theoretically attractive but eternally postponed in practice 10. Building obligations in Switzerland: Overcoming the passivity of plan implementation V REDEFINING PROPERTY RIGHTS TO STEER LAND USES 11. Pre-emption rights in France: Disputes over pre-emptions and the ‘land scarcity’ 12. Tradable development rights in the US: Making zoning flexible through market mechanisms 13. Long-term land leases in France: An instrument to address scarcity of social housing VI REDISTRIBUTING PROPERTY RIGHTS TO STEER LAND USES 14. Strategic land banking in the Netherlands: Experiencing Dutch dilemmas 15. Expropriation for urban development purposes in German: Consider very carefully before using it 16. Nationalization of land in Scotland: Private property and the public interest VI Conclusion 17. Planning with or against property rights
Jean-David Gerber is Associate Professor at the University of Bern, Switzerland (tenure track). Thomas Hartmann is Associate Professor at Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands. Andreas Hengstermann is a PhD student at the Institute of Geography, Research Unit Urban and Regional Planning, University of Bern, Switzerland.
