Change in the political economy of land value capture in England

Abstract

Variations in the character, performance and impact of policies and practices to capture land value for the community are usually examined by analysing experience in different countries. Such international comparative research is cross-sectional and does not cover the evolving relations between systems of land value capture and the economies, polities and societies within which they are set. The paper examines the relations in England between the extant political economy and supporting ideologies, and the distinctive forms of land value capture that they produced. It traces the shift from a top-down, strategic approach in an era of corporatist government before 1979 to the subsequent extension and consolidation of bottom-up practice set within the context of neoliberalism. The analysis highlights the evolution of the idea of land value capture and the policies and practices associated with it, especially the contestation that informed such changes.

Section 106, Viability, and the Depoliticization of English Land Value Capture Policy

“…In the post‐war decades, interventions to capture betterment value were overwhelmingly driven from the centre by a succession of Labour governments in what Catney and Henneberry (2019) term a ‘corporatist’ approach. Typically, this involved setting a national rate of taxation on betterment value, and then providing the state with compulsory purchase powers to intervene if the requisite land was not forthcoming.…”

Fragmented governance architectures underlying residential property production in Amsterdam

“…Growth through uncoordinated and complex institutional relations diminishes the possibilities of interlinking these spatial interventions with the wider built environment surrounding them (Pessoa et al, 2016;€ Ozogul, 2019;Salet and Majoor, 2005). Fragmentation is also the subject of recent discussions in relation to the political economy of land, land speculation, and value capture mechanisms (Catney and Henneberry, 2019;Karaman et al, 2020;Noring, 2019). It is also discussed in relation to the financialisation of the built environment (Aalbers, 2020(Aalbers, , 2019August and Walks, 2018;Bryson et al, 2017;Teresa, 2016;Ward, 2019).…”

Viability Planning, Value Capture and the Geographies of Market-Led Planning Reform in England

“…Their rise to prominence represents an evolution of earlier rounds of post-war planning legislation, which used the public allocation of development rights to raise funds from developers and boost spending on public infrastructure through valuecapture mechanisms of 'planning gain', or what was previously termed 'betterment' (Campbell et al, 2000). As Catney and Henneberry (2019) demonstrate, during different eras of post-war economic governance in England, value-capture mechanisms took on important roles in legitimating the planning system as a form of effective state intervention. In the post-war decades they acted as policy instruments to exert control over private development practices and share the gains of development more evenly between individuals, firms and the welfare state.…”

“…Whilst earlier research identified variability associated with local planning gain agreements and highlighted the importance of local government capacities in shaping outcomes (see Campbell et al, 2000), there has been less research on the geographically varied contexts that shape post-2010 reforms, and the impacts of reform on local planning politics and contexts, beyond studies that highlight quantitative evidence of pathdependencies in developer contributions and the longer-term evolution of planning gain as a form of political economy (Catney & Henneberry, 2019).…”