Private Land Development Research Articles

Strategies for Streamlined Urban Development: A Case Study of Land Use Succession in Upper Hill, Nairobi

This study examines the dynamics of Urban Land Use Succession (ULUS) in Upper Hill, Nairobi, highlighting the impact of neoliberal policies and private sector-led urban redevelopment. It investigates how land tenure, public infrastructure, and planning controls shape urban landscapes, leading to patchwork land use patterns and environmental misalignments. The case of Upper Hill, transitioning from a serene residential area to a bustling commercial hub, is explored to understand the determinants of ULUS and propose strategies for streamlined urban development. Employing Neoliberal Theory and hypothesis testing, the research identifies spatial policy as the primary driver of ULUS. The study suggests innovative approaches, including land assembly and the establishment of an Urban Redevelopment Authority, to harmonize urban development. These strategies aim to bridge the gap between private and public land development, ensuring coherent urban growth. The research contributes to the understanding of urban redevelopment, particularly in Kenyan contexts, by offering a model that integrates public and private interests. This model serves as a blueprint for managing urban transformation in Nairobi and other similar urban settings, promoting sustainable and equitable urban development.

Balancing equity-based goals with market-driven forces in land development: The case of density bonusing in Toronto

This article explores the connections between planning and land rent through a case study of density bonusing in Toronto, known as ‘Section 37’ – a form of land value capture. Density bonusing facilitates speculative bidding on future rents by private developers seeking ‘highest and best’ land uses – or efficient land uses – yet has implications related to equity when the unearned increment is extracted to recover value and invest in public goods. We situate land value capture within debates on the unearned income derived from land development in cities. We view the case of density bonusing through the lens of discretionary planning systems operating through flexible mechanisms. Specifically, we consider the direct role of planners towards balancing private interests with public goods in the face of shifting market and political contexts. The findings show that securing public goods from private land development through the unearned increment lacks consistency and predictability when the flexibility exercised by development actors drives planning decision-making. We conclude with a discussion on the implications for discretionary planning and land value capture in market-intensive, neoliberal environments.

Impacts of Private Residential Land Development Projects in the Flood Flow Zones of DMDP Area: Case Study of Tetuljhora Union

Dhaka the Capital of Bangladesh is experiencing outstanding growth over the last one decade. Dhaka has expanded 17.88 times from its initial size over the period 1951-2000, in the same time span the population has increased 25.09 folds. In response l,) growing demand for housing and other urban uses, private land development companies play a dominating role in the land market. Even though there are sufficient policies for planned development of housing projects, due to high profit making approach of land developer companies, Dhaka is growing in an unplanned way. This is causing adverse effects on the wetlands. For the survival of Dhaka city, it is important to protect the flood flow zones and high value agricultural land. In Tetuljhora union of Savar, housing projects are being developed since the 1980s without following the existing rules and regulations for housing development. Projects are being developed on those areas, where these types of uses are not permitted and they do not follow the standards of PRLD, 2004. So, this area is already facing many environmental, social and economic problems and in the future, if people began to reside here in unauthorized way, they will face problems due to lack of utilities and community facilities. There are problems with planning and development regulatory authorities and loopholes in PRLDR, 2004. To reduce the impacts of unplanned housing projects and ensure planned development of housing projects. measures should be taken to address the loopholes and weaknesses of policy guidelines and regulatory functions. Journal of Bangladesh Institute of Planners Vol. 4. Dec 2011, pp. 57 - 70

Democracy underwater: public participation, technical expertise, and climate infrastructure planning in New York City.

This article provides an explanation for how increased public participation can paradoxically translate into limited democratic decision-making in urban settings. Recent sociological research shows how governments can control participatory forums to restrict the distribution of resources to poor neighborhoods or to advance private land development interests. Yet such explanations cannot account for the decoupling of participation from democratic decision-making in the case of planning for climate change, which expands the substantive topics and public funding decisions that involve urban residents. Through an in-depth case study of one of the largest coastal protection projects in the world and drawing on global scholarship on participation, this article narrates the social production of resistance to climate change infrastructure by showing how the state sidestepped public input and exercised authority through appeals to the rationality of technical expertise. After a lengthy participation process wherein participants reported satisfaction with how their input was included in designs, city officials switched decision-making styles and used expertise from engineers to render the publicly-supported plan unfeasible, while continuing to involve residents in the process. As a result, conflict arose between activists and public housing representatives, bitterly dividing the neighborhood over who could legitimately claim to represent the interests of the “frontline community.” By documenting the experience of participants in the process before and after the switch in decision-making styles, this article advances a sociological description of public influence in policy: The ability for participants in a planning process to recognize their own input reflected in finished plans.

Down and out in Dhaka: understanding land financialization and displacement in austerity urbanism

ABSTRACT This paper examines how high levels of eviction and displacement of the urban poor have arisen due to the financialization of land in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Focusing on the Meradia neighborhood of Dhaka, it employs a historical materialist framework to explore the ramifications of the financialization of land and resulting land grabbing. It is argued that the historical transformation of land into fictitious capital in Dhaka has led to heightened displacements and evictions of the urban poor, which have occurred largely through processes of land grabbing by land and real estate development corporations in Bangladesh. Further, it is argued that the municipal and national states play key roles in the displacement of the working poor in Dhaka by facilitating private land development, failing to enforce existing rules on land grabbing, and by having a paucity of urban housing policies and plans for the urban poor.

A race between urban growth and regulation: An empirical case study on the layout plan

The layout (a form of administrative plan) of a town is treated by libertarians as either a parameter for the land market, in that it is part of the “rule of the game,” or as the limit of government intervention in the land market. Both understandings are imprecise. The layout as “rules,” unlike many other rules, is spatial and physically very stable once rights are allocated accordingly. In addition, the layout is the FIRST town plan, which is the physical cum institutional foundation and framework for market and non-market transactions. It makes a place a place and is first-hand property when it is initially offered on the market. The layout must not be treated as a government monopoly. While this layout is historically often the product of surveyors hired or employed by government, it can be made ab initio by private firms (developers or non-governmental bodies). In terms of planning legislation, this layout is the “base plan” for modern town planning interventions like zoning by edict and urban renewal by eminent domain. Such interventions are often in the form of zoning plans made via planning legislation that unilaterally impose restrictions on private land development. They tend to dampen the growth of the city to meet increased market demand. A comparison of the rate of layout production for new developments and those achieved by the imposition of interventionist zoning plans can shed light on the growth and degree of freedom in the land market. It should offer libertarian economists a real world example of a race between growth and regulation in the land market.

Democracy Underwater: Public Participation and Technical Expertise in Climate Infrastructure Planning in New York City

This article provides a novel explanation for how increased public participation can paradoxically translate into limited democratic decision-making in urban settings. Recent research shows that governments limit the scope of deliberation in participatory forums to restrict the distribution of resources to poor neighborhoods or advance private land development interests. Yet such explanations cannot account for the decoupling of participation from democratic decision-making in the case of planning for climate change, which expands, not narrows, the substantive topics and public funding decisions that involve urban residents. Through an in-depth case study of planning the largest coastal protection project in the U.S., I narrate the social production of resistance to climate change infrastructure by showing how the state sidestepped public input and exercised authority through appeals to the rationality and objectivity of technical expertise. After a lengthy participation process wherein participants reported satisfaction with how their input was included in designs, city officials switched decision-making styles and enrolled the expertise of engineers and climate scientists to render the publicly-supported plan unfeasible, while continuing to involve residents in the process. As a result, conflict arose between activists and public housing representatives, bitterly dividing the neighborhood over who could legitimately claim to represent the interests of the “frontline community.” By documenting the experience of participants in the process before and after the switch in decision-making styles, this article advances a sociological description of public influence in policy: The ability for participants in a planning process to recognize their own input reflected in finished plans.

Spatial planning, nationalism and territorial politics in Europe

ABSTRACT The paper explores whether spatial planning, infrastructure, and territorial management issues and policies are an important field of mobilization for nationalist actors in European substate contexts characterized by demands for more autonomy or independence: Scotland, Catalonia and Flanders. It is shown that such issues are sometimes mobilized to support the autonomist or separatist political agendas of substate nationalist parties, but that this varies significantly in the three cases, because of the different political ideologies of each nationalist party vis-à-vis the role of the state and the legitimacy of public policy interventions in private property, land development and market processes.

PRIVATE (MULK) LAND TENURE IN THE MOUNTAIN COMMUNITIES OF DAGHESTAN IN THE XVIII - FIRST HALF OF THE XIX CENTURIES: FEATURES OF OCCURRENCE, NATURE, DEVELOPMENT TRENDS

The article is devoted to private (mulk) land tenure in the Mountain Daghestan, where rural communities were mainly located. At the same time, several questions are raised related to peculiarities of the beggining of private (mulk) land tenure, its nature and development trends. It is emphasized that on the issue of the occurrence of private (Mulk) land tenure among historians there are opposite, mutually exclusive opinions.

Securing public objectives in large-scale urban development: Comparison of public and private land development

Public authorities have a wide range of objectives related to urban development. Usually, they strive to achieve the objectives via land use planning but their involvement in land development can be significant as well. In this paper, we compare how, and to what extent, local authorities can safeguard public objectives through the use of public and private land development by analysing four illustrative cases of land development in two Nordic countries, Finland and Sweden. Our results suggest that public land development appears to bring significant added value for public authorities in respect of achieving both qualitative and economic objectives. On the other hand, to guarantee fair treatment of landowners, it appears important that public authorities have consistent long-term land policies concerning the use of public land development. However, within democratic societies such long-term policies may be infeasible due to short electoral terms.

International comparison of the changing dynamics of governance approaches to land development and their results for public value capture

A difference exists between public and private governance approaches to land development, also called ‘active’ and ‘passive’ approaches. These approaches change over time and interact with institutional, financial and environmental factors. This article evaluates how these factors influence governance approaches and compares the results of different approaches by analysing how they capture the economic value increase that accrues from urban development and how this affects the governances' intrinsic rationales. After categorising value capture tools, this article investigates the embedment and functioning of these tools into three different governance approaches in three different countries (England, Spain, and the Netherlands), ordered from more passive to more active approach: developer obligations in private land development and in land readjustment, and public land acquisition and development in public governance approaches. The studied cases suggest a general trend towards passive approaches and a sharpening and regularisation of the public value capture instruments embedded in them.

Whose City? Kyiv and its River After Socialism

This article looks at changing land use along the banks of the Dnipro River (formerly Dnieper River) in Kyiv, Ukraine (formerly Kiev) as an example of rising social inequality since the collapse of Soviet socialism. A working assumption is that tangible symbols of power and privilege such as lavish private housing and land development for profit are more evident in post-socialist society than they were during Communism, and that the amenity-rich river zone in the center of Kyiv is ripe for gentrification of beaches, parks, and high hills with river views. The research is based on detailed field work along the Dnipro and study of maps and air photographs. Our data indicate that prime space along the river is being appropriated by private interests for profit or personal use, often without respect to environmental considerations, treasured historic landscapes, and the rule of land use law. In this way, the historic character of Kyiv is being eroded, and public access to the river and its resources is reduced.

The Regulation Charade

The Regulation Charade

The role of NGOs in public and private land development: The case of Dhaka city

Through a series of case studies, this paper discusses the three stakeholders in land development for housing in Dhaka city: the public and private sectors, and NGOs. In a scenario in which urban planning merely serves to the fulfil formal requirements and benefit certain groups, in which the public sector is an accomplice to the private sector, and where NGOs have their own private interests; urban planning in the public interest is interlocked with private interests. NGOs are important tertiary stakeholders in planning and service provision. While they vary in their types and objectives, environment NGOs in particular often find themselves in an antagonistic position concerning public and private land development. However, the interventions to the public and private sectors placed by the NGOs can provide a platform for future negotiation and participation in policy formulation.

Endangered Neoliberal Suburbanism? The Use of the Federal Endangered Species Act as a Growth Management Tool in Southern California

In the United States, new environmental policy instruments have emerged to address some of the economic, social and environmental contradictions of neoliberal urbanism. Amongst these instruments, regional habitat conservation planning under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) is becoming de facto a suburban growth management tool widely deployed across different parts of Southern California. One reason why speculator-developers, property owners, conservationists, planners, municipalities and other suburban interests have bought into this tool is due to the growing link between the federal protection of endangered species and the availability of voter-approved funds for major road infrastructure projects. Evidence of this link is examined in the context of two regional conservation planning processes underway in Riverside County. The paper argues that inadvertently the Federal ESA has been transformed from a species protection law into a regulatory tool with which to co-ordinate private land development, public infrastructure provision and habitat conservation in suburbanising regions.

“Retooling” for the New West: Environmental NGOs, Planning, and Governance Regimes

With rapid population growth in the American West, debates over the West's future have expanded from public lands to include threats to the region's private lands. Part of a broader trend in environmental governance, environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), long an influence on public land policy, are shifting tactics to also shape the West's private land development. This case study examines the changing role of NGOs in land-use planning in Gallatin County, Montana, and asks: How are these NGOs attempting to gain influence? What influence have they gained? This study utilizes regime theory to examine the micro-scale politics between NGOs and local government. The study's findings include: (1) evidence of a coalition forming between some NGOs and local government through the provision of needed resources; (2) evidence of NGOs shifting from adversarial strategies to a cooperative planning approach; and (3) a constrained but growing influence of environmental NGOs on land-use planning.

National Forest Management and Private Land Development: Historical, Political, and Planning Considerations

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) identified the loss of open space as a core threat to the health of national forests. Widely acknowledged are the ecological interconnections between public and private lands. But there is also an important historical and political relationship between national forest management and private land development. There is ample historical precedent for the USFS to consider what is happening outside its jurisdiction and respond accordingly on national forests. We expect national forests to become more politically contested in the future, as a result of the fragmentation taking place on private lands. If the agency fails to consider the larger landscape when making decisions, we also expect a growing number of interests to challenge it politically and legally. There are several policy tools and strategies that can be used to deal with the private land development problem, and we focus on some that have received less attention.

A strategic approach to mitigating the impacts of wild canids: proposed activities of the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre

Wild canids (wild dogs and European red foxes) cause substantial losses to Australian livestock industries and environmental values. Both species are actively managed as pests to livestock production. Contemporaneously, the dingo proportion of the wild dog population, being considered native, is protected in areas designated for wildlife conservation. Wild dogs particularly affect sheep and goat production because of the behavioural responses of domestic sheep and goats to attack, and the flexible hunting tactics of wild dogs. Predation of calves, although less common, is now more economically important because of recent changes in commodity prices. Although sometimes affecting lambing and kidding rates, foxes cause fewer problems to livestock producers but have substantial impacts on environmental values, affecting the survival of small to medium-sized native fauna and affecting plant biodiversity by spreading weeds. Canid management in Australia relies heavily on the use of compound 1080-poisoned baits that can be applied aerially or by ground. Exclusion fencing, trapping, shooting, livestock-guarding animals and predator calling with shooting are also used. The new Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre has 40 partners representing private and public land managers, universities, and training, research and development organisations. One of the major objectives of the new IACRC is to apply a strategic approach in order to reduce the impacts of wild canids on agricultural and environmental values in Australia by 10%. In this paper, the impacts, ecology and management of wild canids in Australia are briefly reviewed and the first cooperative projects that will address IACRC objectives for improving wild dog management are outlined.

Texts and the institutions of municipal government: The power of texts in the public process of land development1

This article explores the textual practices organizing participation in municipal planning and its public discourse. The process in which the assessment and public approval of private land development takes place is a complex sphere of actions involving local government professional staff, clerks, lawyers, private developers and consultants, provincial government staff in several ministries, publicly elected officials and, often, local residents. It is part of the institutions of municipal government. What takes place publicly co-ordinates and characterizes individual actions as part of the institution of local government and its ‘politics'.

A fur seal simulation model to explore alternative management strategies: P. A. Wickens & 6 others, Canadian Journal of Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences, 49(7), 1992, pp 1396–1405

The grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is perceived to have been isolated from the population in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem for a century. Better land use planning is needed to thwart progressive intra- and inter-ecosystem habitat fragmentation, especially due to private land development. The dilemma of private lands being intermixed in large landscapes is addressed. This review attempts to identify some land use planning levels and tools which might facilitate dispersal by the grizzly bear and other large mammals. The planning levels discussed include national, regional, state, county and municipal, and federal land management agency. Specific potential federal tools mentioned include zoning, Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, the Endangered Species Act, beyond boundary authority, land exchanges, less-than-fee acquisition and other incentives, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, and federal land annexation. Besides summarizing existing recommendations, some derived observations are offered.