Gowkthrapple Regeneration Greenspace & Green Network Study
Country
Commentary
Historically land acquired by the municipality, serviced with infrastructure (financed by loans), added in costs relating to off site infrastructure, borrowing costs, plan making &supervisory costs. Income from sale of land for public and commercial services eg schools, doctors surgeries, shops. Remaining costs recouped from sale of land for private and social housing ; on and off site public facilities costs would be passed on to the users ie the purchasers of the housing vie land pricing. Any deficit incurred in the land disposal process would be covered by local or central government subsidy. Recently however commercial developers have bypassed this process and bought unserviced land intended for development direct, often at many times real value . Municipalities unable to use original mechanism to recoup costs of providing public facilities. Local land use planning binding (bestemmingsplan) and provides no legal mechanism for negotiating contributions. A financial statement accompanies all land use plans but not explicitly required by legislation. However research into the financial feasibility of the plan must be attached as guidance notes but these are not legally binding. Used by central government in consideration of subsidies. Target is to set out a balance sheet of income and expenditure to show a "balanced budget".
Netherlands
The situation now appears to be that market mechanisms take over and the costs of providing public infrastructure is argued out between the various "actors" in the market and reflected in surplus profits above normal profits and ultimately the cost of the original unserviced land. Therefore if a municipality wishes to acquire a slice of the surplus profits accruing to any of the actors at various stages in the development process it has to get in early to negotiate this because it cannot impose mandatory contributions at a later stage. What are the possible remedies
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Ironside Farrar Ltd Final Report November 2008
Create legal powers so that it is clear that one or more of the actors will have to contribute to the public facilities viz. intro. of obligatory impact fees with amounts to be paid known and shared at the outset; Not to make the land use plan legally binding before agreements with all parties have been signed; Convince all actors in the early stages that it is in their interests to work closely and openly with the municipality with objectives of increasing the quality of the development whilst keeping infrastructure costs to a minimum.
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