Understanding industrial land supply: how Dutch municipalities make decisions about supplying serviced building land

Abstract

The supply side of real estate markets has remained relatively neglected compared to the body of work that studies the demand side. Consequently, little is known about the way that suppliers actually make decisions about the quantity of land and property to be made available for sale at any one time. This paper investigates how one particular type of suppliers, public developers of serviced industrial building land in the Netherlands, assess market conditions, and the way these analyses influence decisions to make more serviced building land available. This paper presents evidence from interviews amongst municipal developers and finds that profit considerations are not the main motive behind their decisions to develop industrial land. Municipalities are involved in land development primarily because they want to be able to steer local economic development. Furthermore, they also pay attention to 'nonprice' signals of market conditions -sales levels in particular -when deciding to make more land available for sale. However, we should be cautious with interpreting these results since this study only addresses public agencies, which might operate with 'soft budget constraints' and might have alternative preference functions than commercial developers.

Evaluation of the spatial and economic effectiveness of industrial land policies in northwest Europe

“…This represents a situation that is comparable with the one identified for "predominantly rural regions, close to a city": an increase in the consumption of land for economic activities is accompanied by a decrease in employment numbers. The well-documented case of the Netherlands highlights this result (Louw et al, 2012;Needham & Louw, 2006;Ploegmakers et al, 2013). Land-use planning in this country takes place at a communal level.…”

“…According to the Dutch analysts, this situation results from a predominant way of thinking that considers economic land as vital to job creation (Ploegmakers et al, 2013). In fact, this way of thinking leads many municipalities to develop an oversupply of economic land (van Bronkhorst, 2014).…”

“…land specifically developed to accommodate economic activities. For instance, these developments are common in France (Margary, 2012), Belgium (Vandermeer & Halleux, 2013), the Netherlands (Ploegmakers et al, 2013) and Scotland (Bramley & Kirk, 2005).…”

Spatial, economic, and time variables for a fuzzy model of accessibility to municipal services

“…Čeprav sta se navedeni analitični smeri razvili že dolgo nazaj, je za področje še vedno značilna visoka stopnja abstrakcije (Jäger, 2003;Park, 2014), idealiziranje dejanskega stanja (Alexander, 2014) in pomanjkanje empiričnih modelov (McDonald, 2003;Hortas-Rico in Sole Ole, 2008;Irwin, 2010). Potrebne so tudi raziskave na mikro empirični ravni, kjer je enota opazovanja lahko posamezen investitor (Ploegmakers, van der Krabben in Buitelaar, 2013). Več raziskav mora biti usmerjenih v izdelavo realnejših dinamičnih prostorskih modelov (Irwin, 2010).…”

“…Notwithstanding the long period of development of these analytical directions, the area is still characterized by high level of abstraction (Jäger, 2003;Park, 2014), idealization of the actual state (Alexander, 2014) and lack of empirical models (McDonald, 2003;Hortas-Rico, Ole Sole, 2008;Irwin, 2010). It is also necessary to carry out researches on the micro-empirical level, where the observation unit can be an individual investor (Ploegmakers, van der Krabben and Buitelaar, 2013). More researches should be aimed at developing more realistic dynamic spatial models (Irwin, 2010).…”