Market tools for the provision of urban green spaces in post-socialist Sofia

Abstract

This study focuses on the provision of urban green spaces (UGS) as suppliers of ecosystem services (ES). Its main goal is to study how, in market-driven urban development with scarce resources, sufficient public UGS can be provided to meet the needs of the local community. The principal issue is that many ecosystem services cannot be provided solely through the market mechanism and therefore remain undersupplied. The contribution of the paper is that it uses institutional design (ID) in the field of urban planning to develop market-oriented tools for the provision of UGS. ID addresses three key issues: identifying the optimal scale of resource use and defining the circles of resource users and providers, proper assessment of resource values and the collection and transfer of payments for ES to those who provide land resources. The paper analyzes these issues in the context of post-socialist Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital. The post-socialist context is of particular interest because it is associated with two widespread difficulties – lack of funding for the development of UGS and lack of experience with the application of market-based and value-capture tools. In these conditions, the Municipality of Sofia has been unable to implement over 2000 ha of UGS set in the Master Plan 14 years ago. The paper provides directions for ID solutions for the implementation of UGS through the use of market-oriented tools such as impact fees, transferable development rights, concessions, FSR bonuses, and public-private partnerships.