Who pays the public goals in the urban land assembly? A comparative analysis for England, the Netherlands and the Autonomous Community of Valencia

Abstract

In those cases in which private parties develop urban sites a question arises: how far can go public bodies in asking them to contribute to public goals? Which public infrastructure – infrastructure provision, public roads and space, public facilities and buildings, affordable and social housing – should property developers and landowners pay? Another question arises too: can public bodies also ask part of the economic rent that accrues from rezoning the land? This goes further than only requiring contributions for public infrastructure. This is an alive and polemic topic in the UK, the Netherlands and Spain, and the subject of many recent changes in legislation and policy. This article presents empirical evidence of how in practice public and private actors in urban regeneration pay the costs of public infrastructure and profit from the economic rent. Further, it proposes future research lines that could help understand the consequences of planning law and policies on the urban development practice.