Land readjustment for the Development of Urban and Rural Areas

1. Land readjustment for the Development of Urban and Rural Areas Robert Dixon-Gough With contributions from Apostolos Arvanitis, Evangelia Balla , Robert Home, Hans Mattson, Per Kåre Sky, and Walter Seher

2. Introduction • Rural readustment (land consolidation); • Urban readjustment (redevelopment); • Peri-urban developments and pressures; • Historical developments of both settlement patterns and factors leading to land readjustment; • Political issues; • Influence and effects (in both ways) upon boundaries and land ownership; • Comparative analysis of legal instruments and procedures; • Planning issues – both rural and urban; • Social and environmental consequences; • Implications of land readjustment upon land and property valuations

3. Initial comments (1)

4. Initial comments (2)

5. Initial comments (3)

6. Research in peri-urban areas, at BOKU-Vienna • The development and importance of agriculture in peri-urban areas; • Land use pressure in open space; • Policies to preserve open space areas; • Facilitation of multi-purpose land uses (agriculture, recreation, prevention of natural hazards, etc); • New access to (municipal) governance in peri-urban areas – regional governance; • Involvement of non governmental stakeholders.

7. Decreasing importance of land consolidation (Seher) • Due to agricultural development; • Decreasing land prices and decreasing land use conflicts (in very rural areas without tourism!); • Rural depopulation; • Seher identifies the following research ideas: • Changing scenarios of land use, land ownership and landscape development given an increasing retreat of agricultural land uses; • Ensuring a supply of basic infrastructure in very rural area given substantial demographic changes.

8. To this, I would add two research ideas of my own, namely: • The effects and implications of tourism in very rural areas, including the problem of holiday and second-homes, together with the implications of retirement homes; • The implications of protected or conserved areas upon land readjustment.

9. The Case for Urban Land Readjustment – Robert Home • In many countries LR is a preferred legal instrument for development land assembly, especially when public funds for compulsory purchase and infrastructure provision may be lacking; • There is a scattered literature on the subject, but the potential for transnational harmonisation of law and practice is now generating academic research (e.g. by the European Network of Housing Researchers); • Land titling systems are increasingly seen as a necessary role for the modern nation-state (Hernando de Soto), & the UN Commission on Human Settlements is assembling a network of cheap land management tools.

10. Land readjustment is applicable in a number of possible situations: • Tangled mediaeval or pre-industrial ownership mosaics requiring replanning for modern road layouts; • Town expansion into peri-urban areas of fragmented ownership which lack planning or infrastructure; • Redevelopment when previous buildings and land ownership patterns have been disrupted or extinguished by war or natural destruction (fire, flood, earthquakes), creating displaced populations and ownerships;

11. Multi-level or vertical replotting of urban areas to higher densities; • Regeneration sites within urban areas where land assembly may be difficult, and land-owners may try to get a higher price through ‘hold-outs’; • So-called ‘antiquated subdivisions’ (where higher densities are sought); • Environmental protection areas (e.g., coastal or waterfront situations where environmental conservation supports rearrangement of frontage ownerships).

12. Benefits of land readjustment • The securing of fully-serviced urban development without direct public funding; • Historical land patterns can be replaced with planned development suitable for modern transport networks; • Land for public purposes and physical infrastructure being paid for from the shared profits of the development.

13. The land-owners participate in the profits (while under compulsory purchase rules they do not), and meet their wider social obligations; • Large projects achieve economies of scale, and reduce land speculation by discouraging ‘hold-outs’

14. Addendum on Robert Home by RWD-G Two other important areas of research undertaken and published by RH include: • The impact upon land by minority communities – travellers and gypsies (and visa versa); • Informal or squatter settlements, both in Africa and Palestine. Both topics are relevant to the research area of land readjustment.

15. Comments by Evangelia Balla and Apostolos Arvanitis– Greece • Registration of legal instruments, tools and procedures; • The structure of the research proposal for the investigation of land re-allotment instruments could be organised in the following manner: • Historical aspects; • Technical & financial issues; • Legal issues; • Social, political & administrative issues; • Environmental aspects; • Educational Issues.

16. Conclusion Masser, I, 2001. Managing our urban future: the role of remote sensing and geographic information systems, Habitat International, 25, 503–512. • From the forecasts that are currently available it seems that rapid urban growth over the next 10-20 years must be regarded as inevitable (Sadik, N., 1999. Meeting the urban population challenge, City Development Strategies, 1, 16–23).

17. It has been estimated that more than five billion people will be living in urban areas by 2025 and that 80% of these will be residents of cities in less developed countries. • It is anticipated that the impacts of this growth will be particularly marked in megacities with a population of at least five million. • Currently 41 cities in the world fall into this category and further 23 are expected to join this group in the next 15 years.

18. However, there are also thousands of rapidly growing smaller cities throughout the less developed world. • In many countries the problems of smaller cities are as challenging as those of the megacities especially where the latter attract more of the limited resources that are available because of their size and prominent positions.

19. The challenges facing urban managers are numerous and include: • demographic pressure; • inadequate infrastructures; • inadequate resources for service delivery and planning; • conflicting interests between groups and the contradicting priorities of economic development; ecological sustainability and community quality of life.

20. There are no known global precedents in history for urban growth and the corresponding rural depopulation on this scale. I therefore commend the concept of this follow-up Action to you.