Active versus Passive Land Policies

Abstract

The Dutch institutional system for urban development has traditionally been known for its implementation of active land policy by municipalities. This is an approach to land development that includes a municipality acquiring land, servicing it with infrastructure and public amenities and disposing it to a real estate developer, in which the value increase of the land through its development in principal should cover the costs of the operation. In recent times, critical remarks about this way of approaching land development have increasingly occurred, especially since Dutch municipalities lost considerable amounts of money due to investments in land during the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. After this, the collective idea seemed to be that municipalities had to get rid of this way of land development, adopting merely passive land policies. However, as it turns out municipalities have not abandoned the active land policy at all. This research aims at unraveling the characteristics and specifics of land policies and at finding out how municipalities decide on which type to apply. Through a literature review, the spectrum of different land policies is researched, after which an empirical research is done through case studies of eight municipalities to find out how the process of choosing and implementing a land policy in Dutch municipalities currently works. In the end, the lessons from practice will be compared to the existing literature, and a recommendation on how to treat land policy within municipalities will be done.