Negotiation processes in land and property development: an experimental study

Abstract

Negotiations have always played an important role in urban planning and in land and property development processes. Numerous case study-based researches have been done to demonstrate the significance of negotiation to resolve the divergent interests of stakeholders. In this article, an alternative methodological perspective is applied by analysing the negotiation as a more generic mechanism through a role-playing face-to-face negotiation experiment with experts in the field that resembles – to a certain extent – real-life negotiation processes. A number of important aspects of the outcomes were analysed to get useful insights into stakeholders’ behaviour in the negotiation processes where the negotiation takes place voluntarily and spontaneously. It is shown in this study that within the setting of the experiment, the stakeholders can still be expected to be concerned about the equality of outcome. Moreover, it also confirms that the information availability, especially regarding the financial conditions under which the developments take place, plays an important role in defining the success of the negotiations. Finally, based on the experiment, it is possible to define the urban planning equilibrium satisfying all stakeholders in the negotiation process.