440543

2012
EUR21110.1177/0969776412440543Muñoz-GielenEuropean Urban and Regional Studies

European Urban
and Regional
Article Studies

European Urban and Regional Studies

Urban governance, property 2014, Vol 21(1) 60­–78

© The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0969776412440543

public value capturing eur.sagepub.com

Demetrio Muñoz-Gielen
Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Abstract
There is an ongoing debate in the literature on urban policy networks about governance and, more specifically, the
role of public bodies in urban policy implementation networks. This paper focuses on the specific debate in Dutch
and Spanish academic and professional circles regarding property rights in land (hereafter property rights) and the
need to separate development rights from property rights. The British nationalisation of development rights in 1947
is an important point of reference in these debates. This paper adds to these debates by providing empirical evidence
about a land readjustment regulation that public bodies can use to modify the power relationships between public and
private parties. This regulation can improve public value capturing by helping public bodies transfer the costs for public
infrastructure and affordable housing to developers while capturing part of the enhanced economic value.

Keywords
Land readjustment, policy networks, property rights in land, public infrastructure, public value capturing, social and
affordable housing, urban governance, urban regeneration

Introduction
In late 20th-century academic debate on governmen-
tal steering, public bodies were said to have lost their
dominant position in governance. In this debate, the
advocates of the policy network approach criticised
the rational central rule model for policy making and
implementation in which public bodies played a
dominant role over the other involved parties. These
critics argued that, under the welfare state, where
this model ruled the relationships between the gov-
ernment and the market, public policies often failed
to meet their targets despite large public expendi-
tures. The decline and collapse of the centrally gov-
erned states in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s
reinforced the perception that central government
steering had many shortcomings (Kickert
et al., 1997: 1–8).
In governance, formal rules (laws and administra-
tive arrangements) decisively influence power rela-
tions between public and private actors. Property
rights are one important – if not the most important
– type of formal rule. It is sometimes assumed that
property rights grant property owners complete free-
dom in deciding how to use their land. However, the
reality is that all countries restrict the exercise of
property rights through formal rules established in
both private and public law. Formal rules from pri-
vate law regulate the obligations between equal
Corresponding author:
Demetrio Muñoz-Gielen, Radboud University Nijmegen,
Sumatrastraat 139D, 1094 LW Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Email: demetrio@urbsadvies.nl

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Muñoz-Gielen 61
actors, regardless of whether the actors are public or
private. Formal rules from public law regulate the
actions that public bodies impose on others
(Needham, 2006: 1–3, 36–38, 39, 43–46).
The current debate in the urban planning field in
the Netherlands and Spain focuses on the extent
to which public law should regulate the right of
landowners to develop their land. The British 1947
Town and Country Planning Act is the best-known
attempt to regulate this right and has influenced the
Dutch and Spanish debates, which are quite similar.
For example, in both countries controversial pro-
posals have been presented to separate development
rights from property rights, proposals that echo the
1947 British provisions. Although these proposals
have not been implemented in the Netherlands, in
1994 Spain took concrete steps to do just that; the
region of Valencia adopted new legislation that
modified the existing land readjustment regulation
to effectively separate infrastructure provision from
property rights. This innovation is currently imple-
mented in almost all 17 Spanish regions.
This paper provides empirical evidence about the
possibilities in urban development to modify the
power relations between public bodies (e.g. munici-
palities, public planning bodies, public development
agencies) and private actors (non-profit and for profit)
through network management tools. The evidence
focuses on how one aspect of property rights – the
degree to which public bodies depend on landowners
to provide the infrastructure – affects public value
capturing. Public value capturing is when public bod-
ies transfer the costs of public infrastructure and
affordable housing (the costs of land and construc-
tion) to developers while capturing the benefits of
development, i.e. the increase in economic value that
accrues from re-zoning the site. Various concepts fall
under the notion of ‘public value capturing’, and a
multitude of often similar and overlapping terms are
used in the literature to describe these concepts
(Alterman, 2009). In this paper, I distinguish three
concepts: ‘cost recovery’, ‘value capturing’ and
‘creaming off plus value’. ‘Cost recovery’ refers to
the recovery of costs related to building public infra-
structure through contributions from private develop-
ers. In cost recovery, private developers may
contribute to public infrastructure either by construct-
ing this infrastructure directly or by paying the public
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bodies to do so on their behalf. Public infrastructure
refers to infrastructure provision (e.g. public roads
and space) and to the construction of public facilities,
affordable housing and social housing. ‘Value cap-
turing’ describes the moment when the public bodies
that have invested in the infrastructure capture the
enhanced value that results from the investment
whereas ‘creaming off plus value’ refers to a public
body capturing the enhanced value regardless of any
incurred costs (Smith and Gihring, 2006: 752; Van De
Krabben and Needham, 2008: 4).
The evidence presented in this study is based
on case studies of urban regeneration in the UK
(England), the Netherlands and Spain (the region of
Valencia). Exploratory research was also conducted
in six other European Union (EU) countries: France,
Germany, Sweden, Italy, Belgium (Flanders) and
Denmark.
The remainder of the paper is organised into seven
sections. ‘Power and the role of public bodies in pol-
icy networks’ introduces the principles of the policy
network approach and the main features of the
advocated role for governments. ‘Critiques of the
policy network approach’ sketches the critiques to
this advocated role while the ‘The debate on property
rights’ section presents the debate in the Netherlands
and Spain about property rights and introduces the
modification of property rights that will be empiri-
cally assessed in the following sections. ‘Analysis of
power relations in urban development’ presents the
first insight into the empirical evidence: an assess-
ment of the power relationship between public and
private parties in the exploratory research conducted
in nine EU countries. ‘Method and data’ summarises
the methodology of data gathering and subsequent
analysis, including the strategies for improving
validity. ‘Findings from urban regeneration in
England, Valencia and the Netherlands’ presents
detailed empirical data for England, the Netherlands
and the Spanish region of Valencia, and the final
section draws conclusions on the study’s possible
implications for academic and professional debates.
Power and the role of public bodies
in policy networks
The policy network approach positions itself as a
sort of ‘third way’ between the rational central rule
62 European Urban and Regional Studies 21(1)
model and a market-orientated approach. The net-
work approach emerged in the early 1970s (Kickert
et al., 1997: 7–8; Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000: 136–
139) as an alternative to the traditional interorgan-
isational approach. The interorganisational approach
saw public management as a top-down activity
based on a clear authority structure consisting of
three steps: setting the goals (planning), structuring
and designing the organisation (organising) and
‘getting the job done’ (leading). In contrast, the net-
work approach argues that a single public central
authority cannot have the power to unilaterally
determine clear goals and well-defined requirements
before policy making and policy implementation
processes start and that this authority, moreover,
cannot have the power to plan and guide these pro-
cesses (Kickert et al., 1997: 11–12).
Several factors can explain power relations in
policy making and policy implementation processes.
Scharpf suggested focusing on the more stable struc-
tural factors that facilitate or impede certain formu-
lae of power relations among the involved actors and
using resource dependence as a method for discover-
ing these structural factors (1978: 353–334, 366). Of
course, other relevant but non-structural factors also
play a role in power relations, for example consoli-
dated game patterns and the contingent behaviour of
individual actors. However, structural factors are
important as they explain the possibility or probabil-
ity of certain forms of power relations. From this
perspective, policy networks have three important
structural factors: (1) actors pursue their own goals
and are mutually dependent, (2) there is no dominant
actor and (3) it is possible to manage networks
(Klijn, 1997: 30–33).
Actors pursue their own goals and are
mutually dependent
Policy networks consist of different actors that pur-
sue their own goals and follow their own strategy.
This individualistic behaviour harbours potential
conflict because the goals and strategies of the
actors might diverge. That said, even though the
actors pursue different goals, they are also mutually
dependent. Dependency is essential for explaining
a policy network’s existence as elaborating and
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implementing public policies is a process that relies
on more than one single actor (Kickert et al., 1997:
2 Klijn, 1997: 30–31; Scharpf, 1978: 347, 350).
Let us further examine the concepts of power,
resources and dependence. According to Giddens, an
agent exercises ‘power’ if he or she can ‘ “make a
difference” to a pre-existing state of affairs or course
of events’ (1984: 14–16, 258). By exercising control
over ‘resources’, an actor can influence the behaviour
of others, and in doing so, he or she makes a differ-
ence to a pre-existing state of affairs or course of
events, i.e. exercises power. Elias described ‘depen-
dence’ between people as the inverse of power rela-
tions (1971: 84–85). ‘A’ can exercise power over ‘B’
because ‘B’ depends on ‘A’ for obtaining one or more
resources, i.e. the unequal allocation of resources cre-
ates dependence and, in turn, dependence allows the
exercise of power. The strength or degree of this
dependency is connected to the importance of the
resources and their substitutability, i.e. the ease with
which they can be replaced by other resources (Klijn,
1997: 31; Scharpf, 1978: 354–358).
Together with the concepts of power, depen-
dency and resources, formal rules are also relevant
because they regulate the interactions between
actors by defining rights and then stating to whom
these rights belong. Formal rules also create new
resources, which are needed for policy making and
implementation, and then allocate them to certain
actors (e.g. the legal obligation to have the zoning
plans approved and to obtain building permits
before being allowed to build). Thus, rules regulate
the behaviour of actors and the distribution of
resources in the network, and this, in turn, shapes
dependency and correspondingly defines the power
interactions among the actors. However, this process
is more complex because power interactions also
shape, consolidate or alter rules (Klijn, 1997: 33;
Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000: 139). In other words,
rules shape power interactions, but power interac-
tions also shape rules (Figure 1).
There is no dominant actor
The network approach seems to apply to the policy
field the same principles of Giddens’s ‘dialectic of
control’ in social systems (1984: 16). The network
Muñoz-Gielen 63
Figure 1.  The relationship between rules, resources,
dependence and power in policy networks.
approach assumes, as this dialectic does, that each
actor has at its disposal some of the resources/rules
that are required by the other actors to achieve their
goals, and thus there is no dominant actor (Verhage,
2002: 158). This assumption explains why the need
for cooperation is central in the network approach:
policies can develop only when each actor makes its
resources available to the other actors. In other
words, each actor has a veto power (Kickert et al.,
1997: 6; Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000: 142–144;
Scharpf, 1978: 347, 350). Public actors are recog-
nised as occupying a special position in the network
approach because of the unique resources they
control and the democratic legitimacy they enjoy.
However, this special position is that of a primus
inter pares and is nowhere close to a dominant role
(Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000: 151).
It is possible to manage policy networks
The special position of public bodies makes them
suitable to steer or to manage the interactions
between the actors. The network approach distin-
guishes two types of network management tools:
process management and network constitution
(Klijn, 1997: 46–53; Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000:
140–142). Process management tries to improve
the interactions that are already occurring between
actors and assumes the existing institutional
context, e.g. the existing rules and resource distri-
bution. The second network management tool –
network constitution – seeks institutional change,
e.g. change of rules and resource distribution,
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which is more time consuming and is thus meant
for future interactions between actors. The empiri-
cal evidence in the ‘Analysis of power relations in
urban development’ and ‘Findings from urban
regeneration in England, Valencia and the
Netherlands’ sections examines how this second
type of tool works.
Critiques of the policy network
approach
The critics of the network approach blame it for
devaluing the status of the public sector (Kickert
et al., 1997: 170–171; Klijn and Koppenjan, 2000:
151–154) when it treats the public sector as just
another actor in the network. These same critics also
question the network approach’s proposal of directly
engaging and involving governments in policy net-
works as the only way of successfully elaborating
and implementing policies. In their reproach to the
network approach, they criticise the problems of
democratic legitimacy and accountability of deci-
sion making in networks.
In a response to these critiques, Klijn and
Koppenjan argue that the network approach simply
tries to enable the public sector to defend the public
interest and the primacy of politics in a context of
interdependency among public and private parties
(2000: 151). As is shown in the ‘Power and the role
of public bodies in policy networks’ section, the idea
of interdependency is based on the assumption that
governments cannot replace the resources controlled
by other actors, and if the resources can be replaced,
it is too costly and time consuming for the govern-
ment to do so.
Following the critique of Koffijberg, who claims
to have discovered how public bodies can effec-
tively play a dominant role in housing policy net-
works (2005: 322–323), this paper criticises the
network approach’s basic assumption that interde-
pendency is unavoidable. In doing so, this paper
empirically analyses the effects that one specific
network constitution management tool has on power
interactions in policy networks in urban regenera-
tion in the UK, Spain and the Netherlands, and how
these effects influence the capturing of public value.
64 European Urban and Regional Studies 21(1)
The management tool is a land readjustment regula-
tion that limits property rights. The next section
introduces the debate about urban property rights in
the UK, Spain and the Netherlands and shows how
this stimulated the Spanish region of Valencia to
introduce this tool.
The debate on property rights
The British nationalisation of
development rights
The British 1947 Town and Country Planning Act
introduced the so-called ‘nationalisation of develop-
ment rights’. The 1947 Act vested development rights
(the right to change the prescribed use of land) in the
state rather than the landowner. In short, this act man-
dated that no development could take place without
permission of the local planning authority. The act also
stipulated that if permission were refused, landowners
had no right to compensation (Clusa and Mur, 2007:
122–136; Cullingworth and Nadin, 2006: 195–197). If
permission to develop the land were granted, the 1947
Act stipulated a 100% tax on the accruing betterment.
However, this land value taxation was short-lived and
disappeared for a time. In 1976, the tax was reintro-
duced but it was soon fully abolished in 1985. Since
then the UK has not had a betterment tax (Clusa and
Mur, 2007: 124–127; Oxley, 2006: 104). In the mean-
time, however, betterment-like taxes have been intro-
duced. In 2004, the Barker Review and the Planning
and Compulsory Purchase Act recommended introduc-
ing a Planning-gain Supplement, a sort of added stan-
dard charge to the existing negotiated contributions. In
2010, a Community Infrastructure Levy was intro-
duced, which complements the existing negotiated
contributions (Department for Communities and Local
Government, 2010: 4). The levy, however, cannot be
considered a proper betterment tax because it aims at
cost recovery and not the expropriation of added value.
This British experience has influenced the debate
about property rights in the Netherlands and Spain.
In both countries, owing to similar problems with
the public steering of urban development and the
financing of public infrastructure, a debate has
emerged about possible solutions. This debate has
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led, in both countries, to proposals to separate prop-
erty rights from development rights that resemble the
1947 nationalisation of development rights in Britain.
The debate in the Netherlands
Since the 1990s, private parties have assumed a
more relevant role in urban development by seeking
to buy land earmarked for re-zoning. As a result, the
building of social housing has drastically dimin-
ished (Cao and Priemus, 2007: 367–368). The cur-
rent discussion in Dutch urban planning is focused
on whether public law (e.g. expropriation) and pri-
vate law (e.g. buying the land, providing the infra-
structure and assuming all the corresponding costs
and risks) empower public bodies to satisfactorily
control the delivery of sufficiently serviced building
plots, the subsequent delivery of building quotas,
and the financing of public infrastructure. The most
controversial discussions revolve around the sepa-
ration of property rights from development rights.
Priemus and Louw (2000: 6–10, 2003) expressed
scepticism about the powers of public and private
law. The authors found that municipalities suffer seri-
ous bottlenecks in obtaining land and recovering the
costs of constructing public infrastructure. According
to them, there is no free competition in the building
market, and the success of private parties in this mar-
ket does not hinge on their ability to offer a better and
cheaper product but rather on a monopolistic position
obtained thanks to their control of land. Developers
tend to pay higher prices for acquiring land, which
increases development costs that have to be recov-
ered through the sale of the constructed buildings.
The consequence is a diminished and impoverished
public infrastructure and social housing. Buitelaar et
al. concluded that another consequence is the maxi-
misation of the building volume, which creates many
buildings but little public space (2008: 17–18, 20).
Korthals-Altes and Groetelaers argued that pub-
lic law offers many possibilities and that munici-
palities still retain some control by purchasing land
and/or by contractual agreements. The authors go
a step further by arguing that these are sufficient
means for preserving the public interest and influ-
encing urban development (2000: 43–45). However,
Muñoz-Gielen 65
Priemus and Louw disagree and are markedly more
pessimistic about the effectiveness of both public
and private law instruments (2003: 373–375).
Together with Priemus and Louw, some other
authors also see the current strategies of land acqui-
sition and the corresponding creation of monopolis-
tic/oligopolistic positions as limiting free competition
in the building market and as harming public interest
by, for example, reducing public value capturing.
These authors argue that free competition is possible
only by separating development rights from property
rights. Canoy and Van Ewijk (1999: 25) recommend
that landowners should be required to tender for the
development and building rights on their land.
Similarly, Priemus (1996: 32) and Priemus and
Louw (2003: 376–377) propose that expropriation
should be possible when the landowner does not
develop the plot in a ‘competitive manner’.
Accordingly, the municipality should be able to
expropriate the land and organise a public tender. In
2009, a governmental advisory commission pro-
posed to limit property rights in several strategic
areas (Vrom-raad, 2009: 41–42) and a more recent
study evaluated the possible effects in urban devel-
opment practice of splitting development rights from
property rights (Geuting, 2011).
The separation of infrastructure provision
from property rights in Valencia
Since the 19th century, the difficulties faced by
Spanish municipalities to finance and realise public
infrastructure have inspired fundamental reform pro-
posals and measures such as the 1956 Land Act (Ley
del Suelo). This Act and its 1976 modifications suc-
ceeded in introducing a land readjustment regulation
(Reparcelación). The regulation makes profiting from
the betterment conditional on providing infrastructure.
According to the regulation, landowners must pay for
and provide the infrastructure, and, as compensation,
they share the resulting serviced building plots. As
such, they can build on these plots or sell them to
developers. Initially, however, the regulation failed to
provide good-quality public infrastructure on a suffi-
cient scale (Bassols, 1996; García-Bellido, interview
in 2005; Menéndez, 1996).
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In the late 1980s critics of this land readjustment
regulation advocated reform (see García-Bellido,
1989, 1991, 1994; Parejo, 1993). They argued that
the anti-speculation provisions in the regulation
(compulsory readjustment and expropriation if land-
owners fail to provide the public infrastructure) were
ineffective in practice; many municipalities were
confronted with the choice between (1) maintaining
the requirements but losing the cooperation of the
landowners or (2) lowering the requirements to reach
an agreement. The above-mentioned position of
Priemus and Louw (2000) in the Dutch debate – that
there is no free competition in the building market –
shares many similarities with the idea in the Spanish
debate of a ‘captive urban land market’ (García-
Bellido, 1994: 114–115, 578–579). Owing to restric-
tive zoning and the natural features of land (each
location is unique), developing land cannot be sub-
ject to free competition. Property rights give land-
owners the power to enjoy exclusive use of their land
and to exclude others, i.e. landowners have a monop-
oly or at least an oligopoly in the building market.
While parties compete to acquire the land, once they
own it they do not need to compete any more. They
can wait, without having to make any investment or
effort, until the buyers of the final buildings or other
property developers interested in acquiring and
developing the land offer the highest possible price.
Landowners can thus demand the maximum price,
and, in doing so, they can absorb all the residual
profit margins from the subsequent construction.
The British experience decisively influenced
García-Bellido’s proposal to allow the community to
decide who may benefit from the right to develop
land (Clusa and Mur, 2007: 122–136; Roca, 2007).
In García-Bellido’s (1994) proposal, the community
may directly provide the infrastructure and build on
the serviced parcels, and thus benefit from using or
selling the buildings. Alternatively, the community
may allocate this development right to a private
party. Landowners have only the right to the non-
urban use of the land, for example for agriculture.
In the early 1990s the regional government of
Valencia was willing to tackle the lack of free competi-
tion in urban development. The proposal of García-
Bellido influenced the preparation of the new Valencian
66 European Urban and Regional Studies 21(1)
planning law. Even though each Spanish region has its
own planning legislation, the 1978 Spanish constitu-
tion mandates the central government in Madrid to
equally protect the property rights of all Spaniards.
That is, the central government has the responsibility
to protect what is considered the ‘essential contents’ of
property rights.1 This translates into exclusive compe-
tences of the central government on, for example, leg-
islation on expropriation and the economic appraisal of
properties; competences that are thus not transferable
to the regions. According to national planning law, the
right to build belongs to the essential contents. As a
result, regional legislation is not allowed to deny a
landowner the right to build, as envisaged in García-
Bellido’s proposal. The 1994 Valencian Planning Act
(Ley Reguladora de la Actividad Urbanística – LRAU),
however, devised an alternative to Garcia-Bellido’s pro-
posal that still tackles the lack of free competition.
The 1994 Act’s alternative was to modify the land
readjustment regulation and to reintroduce the figure
of the ‘urbanising agent’. A 1976 legal reform had
already introduced this agent, inspired by the ideas of
urbanisme concerté in the 1973 French legal reform.
According to the 1976 Spanish reform, public bodies
could select through a public tender an urbanising
agent that would provide the infrastructure without
necessarily owning the land. However, the reform
was not effective because the agent had no security in
relation to the acquisition of land needed for the pub-
lic infrastructure nor the money to pay for this infra-
structure. The 1994 Valencian Act resolved this by
specifying land readjustment and, if necessary, com-
pulsory land readjustment as the default procedure.
As a consequence, urbanising agents can now be
selected by municipalities to provide the infrastruc-
ture even if the agents do not own the land. The
urbanising agent designs a land readjustment plan,
which, after being approved by the municipality,
gives the agent powers to oblige landowners to pro-
vide the land and pay the costs of infrastructure.
After this is done, the urbanising agent provides the
infrastructure, transfers the public infrastructure to
the municipality, and hands over the serviced build-
ing plots to the landowners. In the last several years,
this Valencian innovation has been introduced in
almost all regions of Spain.
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Analysis of power relations in urban
development
As discussed above, the separation of development
rights from property rights is considered causally
related to public value capturing. This paper analy-
ses this supposed causal relationship by developing
a model. This model is based on the concepts of
power, rules, resources and dependence (explained
in the ‘Power and the role of public bodies in policy
networks’ section and in a similar model by Verhage,
2002: 161). The model analyses the power relations
among public bodies and landowners/developers,
and hence the resulting public value capturing, in
each of the five transactions in the urban develop-
ment process: (1) land assembling (obtaining all the
required land); (2) financing of transaction 1 and 3;
(3) land preparation and development (i.e. infrastruc-
ture provision, which ultimately results in serviced
building plots); (4) land disposition of serviced
building plots; and (5) building on the serviced build-
ing plots (Alexander, 2001).
With this model I analysed which actor controls
each of these transactions and thereby discerned the
influence that public law exercises on property rights
and on dependence patterns. For example, if public
law grants the landowner the exclusive right to develop
the land, the landowner actually controls the resource
‘land’. This means that public bodies are dependent on
the landowner to assemble the land (transaction 1).
Public law might also give public bodies the right to
expropriate the land, but if this right is qualified by
many conditions and guarantees, such as prescribing
high compensation sums, then public bodies remain,
in practice, dependent upon landowners. The opposite
also holds true: as public law grants public bodies the
exclusive right to approve the land use plan and to
issue the necessary permits, public bodies then actu-
ally control the resource ‘land use plan and permits’.
As a consequence, landowners/developers depend on
public bodies to prepare and to develop the land (trans-
action 3) and to build (transaction 5). In short, public
law leads to a dependency between public and private
parties, a dependency that strongly influences the
negotiations between municipalities and the private
parties, and thus public value capturing.
Muñoz-Gielen 67
Following exploratory studies in France, Germany,
Sweden, Italy, Flanders (a region of Belgium),
Denmark, England, Valencia (a region of Spain) and
the Netherlands, it became clear that these countries
did not significantly differ with regard to transactions
4 and 5. In all of these countries, development rights
belong to the landowner, i.e. landowners have the
unique prerogative to build on their land. This also
holds true for the UK, where the 1947 nationalisation
did not modify this right: development rights
remained attached to the land, i.e. developers had to
acquire the land to build on it (Cullingworth and
Nadin, 2006: 195–197). At the same time, in all these
countries the landowner is limited in his right to
undertake development: he does not have ‘minimum’
building rights, and the building that he constructs
must comply with what the law and the zoning regu-
lations prescribe for the plot.
However, with regard to transactions 1–3 (infra-
structure provision), it was possible to distinguish two
groups of countries. In the first group (the Netherlands,
UK, France, Italy, Sweden for larger building schemes,
Flanders and Denmark), transactions depend on agree-
ment between the municipality and the landowners.
As a rule, if these parties do not agree, the only remain-
ing alternative for municipalities is to execute pre-
emption, expropriation and/or a posteriori special tax
formulas. Such heavy-handed interventions have
direct financial and organisational implications for
municipalities. For example, they may advance invest-
ments (transaction 2) to purchase land (transaction 1)
and to construct infrastructure (transaction 3), or they
may endure the risks of eventual delays and low
investment returns. Because these measures are both
heavy handed and politically sensitive, expropriation
and special taxes are not frequently used.
In the second group (Valencia and Germany) the
situation is different: municipalities can obtain the land
(transaction 1) and the money (transaction 2) needed
for the infrastructure provision (transaction 3) without
voluntary agreement. Through land readjustment –
and, if needed, compulsory readjustment – Valencian
and German municipalities can provide the infrastruc-
ture without having to depend on the landowner’s pas-
sive or active collaboration. Compared with the
German equivalent (Umlegung), the Valencian land
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readjustment regulation (Reparcelación) permits a
higher recovery of costs, does not imply a direct finan-
cial and organisational involvement by the municipal-
ity and is used more often.
Method and data
This research focuses on several variables to dis-
cern whether public law limitations to property
rights – such as the land readjustment regulation
(the independent variable) – could contribute to
more effective public value capturing (the dependent
variable). In the study, it was not possible to gather
enough data for a statistical analysis that would iso-
late the relationship between the independent and
the dependent variables. Considering this limitation,
I made several methodological choices. First, I chose
to base the data gathering mainly on explorative
research conducted in nine EU countries and on in-
depth research of several cases of urban regeneration
in three countries: three cases in England, four cases
in Spain (the region of Valencia) and four cases in
the Netherlands.2 Second, to increase both the ‘internal
validity’ of the findings (can the findings explain the
studied cases?) and their ‘external validity’ (can the
findings be generalised to other cases?) I introduced
three groups of measures.
The first group of measures consists of variants of
the ‘method of difference’. All of them aim to tackle
the risk of spurious third variables, and thus to
improve the internal validity of the findings:
Maintaining as similar a context as possible
To control for possible differences in the context of
the cases, I applied two measures:
• The examined countries had similar political,
economic and social contexts (nine EU mem-
ber states: the UK, Spain, the Netherlands,
Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark
and Sweden). I am aware of the large differ-
ences between these countries, but they differ
less than other countries in Europe or other
continents.
68 European Urban and Regional Studies 21(1)
• The cases also had to follow some key sim-
ilarities: all or most of the land had to be
privately owned, land was needed to con-
struct public infrastructure, and an impor-
tant economic betterment had to result from
re-zoning.
Maximising the variance in
the independent variable
The countries and cases showing the broadest varia-
tion in the independent variable of ‘property rights’
were selected to increase the chances of observing a
possible causal relationship with the dependent
variable of ‘public value capturing’ (Polit et al.,
2001: 188–192):
• Of the nine countries, three were selected for
in-depth research: Spain, the UK and the
Netherlands. I focused on the Spanish region
of Valencia because this region, with its land
readjustment regulation, has a unique form of
separation of infrastructure provision from
property rights. The British planning system
is an appropriate case because of its unique
nationalisation of development rights. I
focused on England because of the differ-
ences in planning law between the different
British constituent countries. The Netherlands
was selected because it was the starting point
of my research.
• From the three countries chosen, I further
selected the cases that showed innovative
features of the property rights variable. This
selection was aided by the invaluable assis-
tance of local experts and professionals
(Raga, Beltra, Cliff and Holden, interviews
in 2006 and 2007).
Repeated measurement
As highlighted above, the 1994 Valencian Act modi-
fied the variable property rights because it effectively
separated infrastructure provision from land owner-
ship. As no major changes in the context (potential
third spurious variables such as culture, public poli-
cies, financial situation of the municipalities and
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developments in the real estate markets) occurred in
the Valencian region shortly before or after 1994, the
region provided a good opportunity to study the
effects of the changes in variable property rights on
variable public value capturing.
Checking for other variables
I analysed not only the variable property rights but
also other variables that might be relevant for public
value capturing. This led to the conclusion that in
addition to property rights, ‘certainty’ is another
independent variable that might also influence pub-
lic value capturing. Governments have statutory
powers to create certainty about future contributions
before the start of negotiations with property devel-
opers. Both in England and in the region of
Valencia, governments use these statutory powers to
create certainty, whereas governments in the
Netherlands do not. Certainty strengthens the nego-
tiating position of public bodies and improves public
value capturing (Muñoz-Gielen and Tasan-Kok,
2010). This public intervention can also be consid-
ered a network management tool – a network con-
stitution type of tool. For instance, when developers
are informed in the early stages that they are likely to
face financial obligations, they can negotiate a lower
price for the land with the landowner. If the develop-
ers are uncertain when they agree on the price with
landowners, the developers might pay a price that
incorporates maximum profit margins. In other
words, certainty beforehand can lower land prices
and thus provide sufficient financial leeway for the
developer’s contribution. If local authorities intro-
duce new obligations too late, the developer may not
have sufficient financial leeway left in his budget to
contribute (Campbell et al., 2000: 769–771; Rowan-
Robinson and Lloyd, 1988: 128–130). Also, cer-
tainty strengthens the policy base for public officers
to request contributions.
In addition, I systematically checked a list of pos-
sible third spurious variables in every case: the per-
sonal circumstances of those involved, political
circumstances and market prices of real estate. For
example, I analysed market prices to assess whether
differences in public value capturing could be related
more to profit margins of developers than to the
Muñoz-Gielen 69

Table 1.  Selected urban regeneration cases in England, Spain (region of Valencia) and the Netherlands.

Valencia England The Netherlands

Multifunctional central areas Guillem Temple Stationskwartier
Periodista
Monofunctional residential Guillem (*) Kruidenbuurt
areas Part of Benalúa
Old brownfield sites Periodista Megabowl Funen
Camino Harbourside Kop van Oost
Part of Benalúa
Multifunctional central areas are city/town downtown areas and sites around railway stations.
Monofunctional residential areas are districts with a predominantly residential use.
Old brownfield sites are derelict sites: business and other economic–industrial activities; gas and electricity factories; harbour areas;
railway infrastructure; and hospitals, government buildings and military sites.
(*) It was not possible to find a case in England that would fit this category.

variable property rights. This analysis enabled me to
explain why public bodies in England were able to
secure higher contributions than public bodies in the
Netherlands despite the fact that public bodies in both
countries do not have a land readjustment regulation at
their disposal (‘Other explanatory variables’ section).
Applying a hypothetical–deductive method
Besides the measures based on the ‘method of dif-
ference’, another measure to increase the internal
validity of the findings consisted of applying a hypo-
thetical–deductive method to check the assumption
that separating infrastructure provision from prop-
erty rights improves public value capturing. The
study’s findings confirmed this assumption.
After measures to increase the internal validity were
introduced, another methodological risk, the risk of the
case studies being exceptional cases, had to be addressed
to increase the external validity of the findings.
Therefore, a third group of measures was employed:
Representativeness of the cases
I selected cases that are representative of the main
types of urban regeneration projects in the respective
countries (Table 1).
Supplementary sources
I systematically compared the case-based findings
with supplementary sources (publications and expert
interviews) to assess their degree of external validity.
For example, supplementary sources are relevant for
determining the degree to which developers contrib-
ute to public infrastructure in their respective coun-
tries (‘Remarkable differences in public value
capturing’ section). The case-based data were sys-
tematically compared with other available studies,
which are abundant in Spain and England but scarce
in the Netherlands, and with interviews with numer-
ous experts who assessed whether the case-based
findings were representative (Lyon, Henneberry, van
Wageningen, Stauttener, van Bladel and Segeren,
interviews in 2007 and 2008).
Representativeness of the countries
The cases of the Netherlands (a country that has a
more conservative profile in the property rights vari-
able, similar to a certain extent to Germany, France,
Italy, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden), and those of
England and Valencia (which have clear exceptional
features) cover the widest variance possible of the
different values of the variable property rights in the
nine countries studied. This increases the chances
that other countries have characteristics that fall
within those of any of the three selected countries,
i.e. the chances that the selected countries are repre-
sentative of other countries.
The following section presents the evidence from
the studied countries and employs the dependence
model developed in the ‘Analysis of power relations
in urban development’ section to demonstrate how
property rights influence public value capturing.

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70 European Urban and Regional Studies 21(1)

Table 2.  Dependence analysis of the English, Dutch and Valencian (before 1994) cases.

Dependence because of land Dependence because of Dependence because of

Local public Developer/landowner owns
body depends on the land. Dependence is
the landowner/ only avoidable through
developer expropriation, but this is
used only in exceptional
circumstances. Expropriation
is considered slow, expensive
and risky. In the Netherlands
‘self realisation right’ gives
preference to landowners
Landowner/
developer depends
on the local public
body
investment capacity regulatory resources
The developers are able  
to invest in buying the
land and developing
it. Dependence is not
avoidable because local
public bodies are not
willing to invest. Only in the
Dutch case of Breda was
the municipality ready to
assume some financial risks
The public bodies grant the
required permissions (and in
the Netherlands and Valencia
approve the land use plan).
Dependence is not avoidable

Findings from urban regeneration
in England,Valencia and the
Netherlands
Differences in dependence between
public and private actors
The exploratory research in the ‘Analysis of power
relations in urban development’ section showed that
the nine countries that were studied differ in the pro-
cess of infrastructure provision, which in Spain and
Germany is under public control. The detailed case
research in England, Valencia and the Netherlands
confirmed that in England and the Netherlands
providing infrastructure depends on agreements
because none of the actors controls all of the neces-
sary resources, resulting in a strong mutual depen-
dence (Table 2). Without a voluntary agreement,
Dutch and English municipalities have no alterna-
tive but to expropriate or to buy the land and to con-
struct the infrastructure, i.e. they are forced into
direct organisational and financial involvement.
Expropriation has neither been applied in the stud-
ied cases nor is it a commonly used instrument in
these countries.
Before the 1994 Act, the situation in Valencia
was similar to the situations in England and the
Netherlands. Even though municipalities could
use a land readjustment regulation, this regulation
relied on the support and active collaboration of
the owners of at least 60% of the land. Although it
was theoretically possible to force land readjust-
ment and hence avoid dependence, this required
direct involvement of the municipality, so it did not
happen often.
The situation in Valencia has changed since
1994. Valencian municipalities can now opt for
compulsory land readjustment without having to
become directly involved. Through a public tender,
the municipality can select an urbanising agent to
provide the infrastructure. This agent can be a pub-
lic company, the landowners themselves formally
joined in a company, or, as is most often the case, a
commercial developer or construction company that
owns a share of the land. Landowners can choose to
either opt for voluntary expropriation or participate
in the development. If they choose expropriation,
the urbanising agent pays the compensation and
acquires the land. Expropriation sums are, however,
not fully equivalent to the value of the land’s future
use. If the landowners decide to participate and sell
the land once the infrastructure has been provided,
they can secure a higher profit. However, in adopting
this method, landowners have to deliver their land
and pay the urbanising agent a proportional share of
the infrastructure provision costs. In exchange, they

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Muñoz-Gielen 71
receive the serviced building parcels, while the
municipality receives the public infrastructure.
Furthermore, the municipalities are not dependent
on the urbanising agent, which can be selected
through a public tender and usually from several
competing developers. Again, municipalities are
not limited in their choice, as they can also select
parties that do not own the land.
Dependence has a negative effect
on public value capturing
If dependence exists and it is difficult to avoid,
landowners can choose to wait, i.e. not to agree with
the municipality about the required contributions
package or not to agree about the land price with
another actor who wants to develop the land.
Waiting may be the best economic option because a
delay in negotiations can increase the profits.
In the English and Dutch cases studied, public
bodies were often confronted with landowners/
developers who did not agree, so they had to lower
the required contributions package to reach an
agreement. For example, in the English case of
Harbourside,3 the developer protested the require-
ment to construct 30% affordable housing. In
response, the local planning authority lowered
this requirement to 9%. These case-based findings
are representative for England and the Netherlands
(Buitelaar et al., 2008: 17, 94–96, 108–110, 112–
114; Brand and Hoekstra, interviews in 2008).
A Dutch example is Kop van Oost4 where differ-
ent parties (the original landowner, an intermediary
and a property developer) successively bought and
sold interests in land, which increased the land price
and delayed the development. An ‘interest in land’
might consist of, for example, land ownership or an
optional right to buy and develop the land in the
future for a previously agreed price. The developer
who finally bought the land decided to delay redraft-
ing the plans (Buitelaar et al., 2008: 58; Segeren,
interview in 2008). During the process housing
prices significantly increased above inflation, which
made delaying an interesting economic option. It
seems that the option to wait also lowered public
value capturing: the developers made it clear to the
municipality that there was little financial room for
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contributions and, in addition, they introduced cost-
saving changes in the quality of the public space
(Buitelaar et al., 2008: 113–114). The municipality
accepted these terms because it was in a hurry to
develop the site.
Before the 1994 Act Valencian municipalities
were similarly confronted with landowners and
developers who were unwilling to agree with the
required contributions. This reluctance delayed
development and finally forced municipalities to
lower the contributions package to reach an agree-
ment. As a result, the development sites that were
produced were large enough only to provide mini-
mal infrastructure for several plots. Building
schemes included only the minimum packages of
low-quality public infrastructure. Instead of fol-
lowing a plan with the most suitable parcelling,
readjustment mostly followed the landowners’
property boundaries and interests (Baño, Blanc,
Escribano, Montiel, Muñoz, Cañellas, Roger and
Rubio, interviews in 2006 and 2007). A good exam-
ple of this flawed development is the urban periph-
ery in the city of Valencia at the end of the 1980s.
The effects are still visible today: large buildings
stand in the middle of deteriorated agricultural land
without adequate public infrastructure to support
them (Figure 2).
The introduction of the 1994 Valencian Act has
had important consequences. Today there is no
mutual dependence in Valencia, and although com-
pulsory readjustment is not common, it does play
an important role in dissuading landowners from
delaying development. The 1994 Act has also posi-
tively affected public value capturing (Blanc, 1997;
Modrego, 2000). Now when a developer submits a
proposal and the municipality approves it, land-
owners must follow suit. As a consequence, both
the quality and quantity of public infrastructure
have improved, and both public and private invest-
ments have increased extraordinarily, which has
accelerated urban development. In the Valencian
case of Guillem,5 neither the developer who first
submitted a proposal and was finally selected as
urbanising agent nor the other three developers sub-
mitting alternative proposals initially owned any
land. The possibility of selecting a developer with-
out land was a crucial factor in the Valencian case:
72 European Urban and Regional Studies 21(1)
Figure 2.  Examples of buildings in the periphery of the city of Valencia constructed in the 1980s: (1) Orriols; (2)
Torrefiel (November 2006).
hundreds of individuals owned property but not all
the owners would have agreed on a voluntary land
readjustment. In the end, they had to accept the full
contributions package and, as part of the tendering
procedure, the urbanising agent accepted to pay
additional contributions.
Remarkable differences in
public value capturing
When comparing the three countries, several signifi-
cant differences emerge in public value capturing,
which is the highest in Valencia after 1994, high in
England but lower than Valencia, and the lowest in
the Netherlands:
• On-site infrastructure provision costs: in
England and Valencia these costs are mostly
or fully paid by the developers, whereas in the
Netherlands these costs are subsidised by the
government.
• Land for on-site public infrastructure: in
Valencia landowners provide all the land for
free, whereas public bodies in England and
the Netherlands also provide part of the land.
• Social/affordable housing: in England and
Valencia social/affordable housing is
largely or almost completely paid by the
developers, whereas in the Netherlands it is
primarily funded by municipalities and
housing associations.
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• Off-site public infrastructure: in England and
Valencia developers contribute significantly.
In England this is done mostly by financial
means and in Valencia primarily with land. In
the Netherlands these contributions are rare.
• Creaming off added value: public bodies in
Valencia capture a significant share of the
enhanced economic value, even if they do not
own land. In England, public bodies do not
officially profit, but with the broad definition
of developers’ off-site contributions, one might
conclude the contrary. In the Netherlands, this
is the case only when public bodies own the
land and/or invests and shares the risks.
Financial feasibility as an alternative
explanation for landowners/developers
choosing to wait
It has already been claimed that landowners and devel-
opers in England and the Netherlands might choose to
stall development, with the expectation that longer
negotiations will increase profits. However, develop-
ers often cite an alternative explanation: development
is often delayed or even completely halted because of
unreasonably high municipal demands (Whitacker and
Fokkema, interviews in 2007). In this study, it was dif-
ficult to empirically assess whether the requirements
were indeed too high because information about devel-
opment costs and profits is not public information.
Table 3 summarises the costs, returns and the final
Muñoz-Gielen 73

Table 3.  Costs, returns and balance of operations in urban regeneration.

1.   Accounted land costs The land price that the developer includes in the calculations
2.   Infrastructure provision costs Include not only the infrastructure provision works, but also reserved
amounts for unexpected expenses, overhead costs, potential ‘hidden’
profit margins of the developer, etc. In the Netherlands they comprise
Slopen, bouw en woonrijp maken, risico en onvoorzien. (demolition,
infrastructure provision, unforeseen expenses) They should also
include the financial costs (the costs of lending money to finance the
infrastructure provision costs)
3.   Plan preparation costs Includes the costs of the preparation of plans, studies, etc. (Plankosten, or
Voorbereiding, toezicht en planontwikkeling [plan preparation costs])
4.   Soil decontamination costs Includes the costs of decontaminating the land
5.   Compensation costs Includes compensation to existing owners and inhabitants for removal of
activities and residence, demolition of constructions and buildings, etc.
6.   Contributions Includes the contributions, in cash or in kind (i.e. facilities and buildings)
to public goals: payments, construction of public infrastructure or public
buildings, etc. Excludes on-site public spaces and roads (even if they
serve a wider area than the development in question), which are already
included in (2) Infrastructure provision costs.
7.  Real estate development Includes the entire development of the real estate; thus not only the
costs construction costs, but also the preparation of plans, overhead costs,
possible ‘hidden’ profit margins of the developer, etc.
8.  Total returns Includes the total returns accruing from the sale of the real estate
(office, dwellings, etc.)
9.   Developer’s final profit Regards the profits of the final developer, which is equal to the total
returns (8) minus the sum of the other categories above (1–7), and is in
addition to any potential ‘hidden’ profit included in the categories above

balance associated with a site’s regeneration. In the
Dutch cases, the developers claimed that their final
profit margins were quite narrow. For example, in Kop
van Oost, they estimated only €2 million in profit.
However, according to my estimates, it was dramati-
cally higher – up to €29 million, indicating that there
was room for higher contributions. In short, it is not
clear in the Dutch cases whether developers waited
because they needed to or because they wanted to
increase their final profit. Finally, how can one explain
that in the Valencian cases the financial feasibility of
operations was not a problem even though the contri-
butions were much larger than in the Netherlands?
According to my calculations, the profit margins
in the English cases were larger than those in the
Dutch cases and allowed for greater contributions. In
England, resistance or acceptance of the requirements
was based more on both the expected land price (how
much the initial landowner or the developer who
bought the land expected to receive for the land,
which translates into the accounted land costs) and
the expected profit than on the objective financial fea-
sibility of the project. For example, the contributions
in Megabowl6 were high thanks to a relatively low
accounted land cost (€3–4.5 million). This is due to
an exceptional circumstance: there was uncertainty
regarding building possibilities on the site, which dis-
couraged developers from purchasing the site in the
years prior to development. This lowered the land-
owner’s land price expectations, which made it pos-
sible for the developer to contribute more than usual.
Differences in costs of infrastructure
provision and plan preparation
Costs for infrastructure provision and plan prepara-
tion seem to greatly differ between the countries
(Table 4). These costs were highest in the Dutch
cases: €438 in Kruidenbuurt and €368 in Kop van
Oost per square metre of new public space;7 and,
due to exceptional circumstances, even higher in
Stationskwartier (€1212). In the English cases costs

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74 European Urban and Regional Studies 21(1)

Table 4.  Comparison development costs in the Dutch, English and Valencian cases.

Dutch cases Three additional English cases Valencian cases

Dutch cases,
expert opinion

  Kruid KvO Stati One Two Three Mega Temp Harb Guill Period Camin Benal
2.  Infrastructure 438 368 1212 249 222 94 153 269 332 77 418 85 75
provision costs
(€/m2 new public space)
3.  Plan preparation 102  61 24 17 269 18 19
costs
(€/m2 new public space)
In the Dutch case Stationskwartier, the €1212/m2 also includes accounted land, soil decontamination and compensation costs.
In the English case Megabowl, the €153/m2 also includes soil decontamination and compensation costs.

were also high: €153, €269 and €332. In the Valencian
cases they were the lowest: €94, €693, €103 and €94.
The extraordinarily high figure for the second case is
not representative of the entire Valencian region, but
the other three are (Fernández and Fernández, 2002:
68–74; Raga, interview in 2008).
By analysing three additional recent urban regen-
eration projects, two Dutch experts confirmed the
generalisability of the figures from the Dutch cases.
Infrastructure provision and plan preparation costs
amounted to €352 in Project 1 and €283 in Project 2.
In Project 3, the costs were lower (€118), which sug-
gests that costs can sometimes be similar in the
Netherlands and in Valencia (Stauttener and Van
Bladel, interviews 2008).
A possible explanation for the high costs of infra-
structure provision and plan preparation in the
Netherlands and England is that when landowners/
developers exercise the option to wait, it has an
inflationary effect:
• Delays usually bring additional activities
(studies, meetings, etc.) and thus increase the
plan preparation costs. In the Dutch Projects 1
and 2, plan preparation costs were €102 and
€61, respectively. In the Valencian cases, they
were about €18. Unfortunately, it was not
possible to specify these costs for the other
Dutch and English cases.
• Delay and the corresponding uncertainties
increase the associated risks, which, in turn,
translate into higher infrastructure provision
costs. For example, the developer may allocate
higher reserve lines for unforeseen expenses,
and delay may also increase the financial costs.
Inflationary effect of waiting on land prices
Landowners can opt to wait before agreeing to sell
or to develop, and this gives them a strong negotiat-
ing position. Therefore, parties are more interested
in acquiring land, which, in turn, results in more par-
ties competing with each other to acquire the land
and this competition increases land price. The find-
ings in the Dutch cases suggest that land prices
indeed increased. In De Funen, the landowner appar-
ently sold the land to the developer for a significantly
higher price than the price he bought it for. In Kop
van Oost, the estimated market value of the previous
use (industrial land) was about €3.6 million, but the
land was sold for around €12 million.
Other explanatory variables
Even though landowners in both England and the
Netherlands have the option to wait before selling or
developing their land, England has better public
value capturing. Two variables other than the option

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Muñoz-Gielen 75
to wait might explain this. First, when the data were
gathered, housing prices in the English cases were
significantly higher (€3000–5000 per square metre
of floor space and even higher) than prices in
Valencia and in the Netherlands (about €2000–3000
in both countries). This could explain why English
developers offered more generous contributions than
their Dutch counterparts did, but it does not explain
why English developers offered fewer contributions
than their Valencian counterparts. Second, in the
early stages of development processes (before nego-
tiations take place), there is high certainty in England
regarding the obligatory contributions, but not in the
Netherlands. This certainty seems to lower land
prices and to strengthen the negotiating position of
English municipalities (see ‘Checking for other vari-
ables’ and Muñoz-Gielen and Tasan-Kok, 2010).
Conclusions
This research sought to provide empirical evidence
to contribute to the debates about urban governance
and the separation of development rights from prop-
erty rights in land. One particular type of network
management tool, the Valencian land readjustment
regulation, takes away the control of infrastructure
provision from landowners and, in so doing, modi-
fies the public–private power relationship in such a
way that public value capturing improves. A second
network management tool that seems to improve
public value capturing is the English and Valencian
governments’ use of regulatory powers to create cer-
tainty about future contributions (Muñoz-Gielen and
Tasan-Kok, 2010).
Thanks to the land readjustment regulation, public
bodies in Valencia play a role that clearly fits more
within the advocated role of public bodies in the tra-
ditional interorganisational approach than in the pol-
icy network approach. In Valencia, public bodies
assert themselves as the only authority structure to
plan and to guide the urban redevelopment process
and not as a mediator that only guides interactions
and provides opportunities. This situation is the
opposite to that in the Netherlands and England,
where the absence of this tool leaves public bodies
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with reduced steering powers. Through the land read-
justment regulation, municipalities in Valencia can
select their preferred developer, avoid long negotia-
tions and force infrastructure provision. In addition,
these powers can lower land prices and land develop-
ment costs, thus leaving a larger leeway for develop-
ers to contribute. In the Netherlands, public bodies do
not have any land readjustment regulation at their
disposal and thus have a weaker position that makes
it difficult for them to steer urban regeneration. This
weaker position ultimately results in their subsidising
of public infrastructure. In England, public bodies
also have a weak position. However, by using their
regulatory powers to create certainty about future
contributions, and as a result of higher real estate
prices, English public bodies manage to obtain far
more contributions than Dutch public bodies, despite
the contributions remaining lower than those in
Valencia.
The findings in this study undermine the basic
theoretical assumption of the policy network approach
that public bodies must assume a more modest role
and cannot be dominant in policy making and imple-
mentation. The policy network approach has failed to
sufficiently demonstrate that dependence of the gov-
ernment on private actors is inevitable and that private
actors have unavoidable veto powers in policy mak-
ing and implementation. In Valencia, public bodies
can efficiently avoid this veto power and thus avoid
mutual public–private dependency through compul-
sory land readjustment. Many advocates of the policy
network approach come from the Netherlands, but the
nature of the power relationship between public and
private actors in this country should neither be taken
for granted nor be viewed as an inevitable departing
point for drafting theories and policies as the policy
network approach does.
The findings also support the idea that when
public bodies pursue the production of urban space
and housing through the involvement of landowners
and commercial developers, then property law
should be a matter not only of rights but also of obli-
gations. I agree with Hong and Needham (2007:
xv–xix), who state that land readjustment is an
alternative solution to problems with traditional
forms of land assembly (voluntary exchange or
76 European Urban and Regional Studies 21(1)
expropriation). However, the findings in Valencia
highlight the weaknesses of land readjustment by
demonstrating that effective enforcement mecha-
nisms are needed to prevent landowners from
engaging in speculative actions.
Regarding the Dutch debate, the findings coin-
cide with the position of Priemus and Louw, who
argue that the increase in private control of the land
since the 1990s has inflated land prices and impov-
erished public infrastructure. Another discussion
topic is whether municipalities can satisfactorily
achieve their public goals using the current instru-
ments of public and private law. In this discussion,
the concept ‘satisfactorily’ has not been clearly
defined. As a consequence, it is not possible to
assess whether public law in the Netherlands
results in ‘satisfactorily accomplished’ public
goals. However, it is possible to conclude that a
land readjustment regulation can significantly
improve public value capturing and accelerate
urban development. Because the Dutch 2008
Development Contributions Act (Grondex­
ploitatiewet) has neither introduced such a regula-
tion nor substantially modified the dependence
relationship between public bodies and landown-
ers, it will probably not substantively improve pub-
lic value capturing.
Regarding the Spanish debate, the findings sup-
port the critical approach of García-Bellido and oth-
ers. In a context of privately owned land and in the
absence of public subsidies, breaking the monopolis-
tic/oligopolistic position of landowners is the only
way of assuring good quality and adequate quantity
of public infrastructure.
In conclusion, the current economic crisis has
already negatively affected public value capturing
and construction rates. Owing to decreases in real
estate prices, the developer’s final profits are
diminishing, which makes it even more difficult
for developers to contribute to public infrastruc-
ture, and thus forces delays on urban projects. This
further emphasises the need to lower the costs of
obtaining the land, providing the infrastructure
and preparing the plans. This paper argues that
lowering these costs can be achieved by modifying
property rights through a land readjustment
regulation.
Downloaded from eur.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on May 12, 2016
Funding
This study was supported by the Dutch government
(Habiforum Program Innovative Land Use) and Delft
University of Technology (Delft Centre for the Sustainable
Urban Areas).
Notes
1. The ‘essential contents’ of property rights in land could
be identified, grosso modo, with what in the Anglo-
Saxon legal tradition is called the minimal ‘bundle of
rights’ that someone has to own to be regarded as the
owner (cf. Needham, 2006, 34–35, 38–40).
2. The study of the three English urban regeneration
projects was conducted in the summer of 2007 in the
city of Bristol: ‘Harbourside/Canon’s Marsh’ (7.8 ha),
‘Temple Quay’ (7.4 ha) and ‘Megabowl’ (1.3 ha). Of
the four Valencian projects three are located in the city
of Valencia (‘Guillem de Anglesola’ (1.2 ha),
‘Periodista Gil Sumbiela’ (0.6 ha) and ‘Camino
Hondo del Grao’ (5.7 ha)) and one in the city of
Alicante (‘Benalúa Sur’, 8 ha). All were studied in the
winter of 2006–2007. The four Dutch cases are
located in the cities of Amsterdam (‘De Funen’, 8 ha,
studied in the winter of 2004–2005), Eindhoven
(‘Kruidenbuurt Noord’, 17 ha, studied in the winter of
2007–2008), Groningen (‘Kop van Oost’, 5 ha, stud-
ied in the winter of 2007–2008) and Breda
(‘Stationskwartier’, 16 ha, studied in the winter of
2007–2008). The most relevant data were updated in
the spring and summer of 2010.
3. The English case of ‘Harbourside/Canon’s Marsh’
(7.8 ha) is the last and largest part of the regeneration
of the former dockland and was mostly flat before
redevelopment. In 1999, a developer submitted the
first application, which was rejected; the second one
was also unsuccessful. In 2001, the third application
was successful, and planning permission was formally
granted in 2003 after negotiations under Section 106
ended with the signing of a development agreement.
Initially, 60% of the land was privately owned, and the
rest was owned by the city council of Bristol. Work on
infrastructure provision commenced in 2004. By June
2007 more than half of the development had been
delivered or was under construction; from the 700
apartments, 44,000 m2 office space and 30,000 m2 lei-
sure space, the first buildings were already occupied
and in use at this time.
4. The site in the Dutch case ‘Kop van Oost’ (5 ha,
Groningen) was no longer in use, and 60% of the land
was owned by the former user, a wood-processing
Muñoz-Gielen 77
company. In 2000, an intermediary commissioned by
a commercial developer negotiated with the land-
owner and most probably acquired an interest in land.
After negotiating general development terms with the
municipality, the interest was resold to another devel-
oper in 2002. Negotiations with the second developer
formalised into a development agreement in 2005.
The plan was definitively approved in 2006; it includes
430 dwellings, most of them apartments, and about
4,000 m2 of commercial space. As of 2010, none of the
apartments were finished.
5. Regeneration in the Valencian case ‘Guillem de
Anglesola’ (1.2 ha, Valencia) included the demolition
of old and decrepit housing owned by hundreds of dif-
ferent owners and the construction of a main road
flanked by about 125 new apartments. In 1999, a com-
mercial developer submitted a proposal and in 2005
was formally selected as the urbanising agent after a
public tender, negotiations and the signing of a devel-
opment agreement. While the developer had owned
almost none of the land in 1999, the developer had
bought almost all of it by the end of the land readjust-
ment procedure (May 2008).
6. The English case ‘Megabowl’ (1.3 ha) is relatively
isolated from the rest of the city. Before redevelop-
ment the site was used as a bowling alley and there
was no zoning plan for the regeneration of the site. In
2006, the landowner submitted an application for
regeneration into 184 apartments and, after obtaining
provisional approval at the end of that year, the land-
owner sold the site to a commercial developer. In
2007, negotiations ended with the signing of a devel-
opment agreement. Infrastructure provision started in
2007, but as of 2010 the building was not completed.
7. New public space is the surface area that is redevel-
oped and is allocated for public use. Most of the costs
are related to the construction of public infrastructure
above or under this surface.
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