Land for housing the poor

Urban land Politics and Government

intervention

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 Outline
• Previous lecture
• Urban Land Politics
• Government Participation In Land
Development
– State attempts at integrated development
– Limitations to state involvement
– Legitimizing and improving existing settlements

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 Urban Land Politics
• Struggle for land
– Actors involve
• The government
– Providing regulations
– Intervention in the market
• Private sector
– Developers who need land for the exchange value of the land
• The people
– The rich who wants to invest in land
– The Poor who need land for their house

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 Urban land Politics
– Conflicting interest (from McAusland. 1985)
• Landowners and estate agents who illegally subdivide and sell plots
(Mexico city, Sao Polo, Bogota, Ankara, Sansalvador, Karachi, Delhi,
Bangkok, Jakarta) or who manipulate squatter invasions so they ocure on
their land and they demand compensation from the government at a high
price.
• Commercial and industrial enterprises who rely on slum and shanty town
population to provide cheap labour, cheap services or cheap sub-
contracting. Since housing cost arae low, wages can be kept low
• Slum landlords and their political protectors in high places
• Officials who for private gain buy cheap land and sell it off for upper
income housing, and who overlook, for bribe, the breach of building or
planning regulations
• Politician who near election time display their magnamity by legalising a
squatter settlement, or giving piped water or some other basic services

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• The condition for Political action
– Patron-Client:
• The patrons are usually the land lord or Prince who lend or rent
their lands to people who serve them ( the concept of Magersari –
in Yogyakarta)

– Bureaucracy
• for obtaining land ownership rights
• For buying and selling

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• Land redistribution
– Land reform
• Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs
regarding land ownership
• Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-
backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural land.
• Land reform can, therefore, refer to transfer of ownership from the more
powerful to the less powerful: such as from a relatively small number of
wealthy (or noble) owners with extensive land holdings (e.g. plantations,
large ranches, or agribusiness plots) to individual ownership by those who
work the land Such transfers of ownership may be with or without
compensation; compensation may vary from token amounts to the full
value of the land

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 • Land reform may also entail the transfer of land from individual
ownership — even peasant ownership in smallholdings — to government-
owned collective farms; it has also, in other times and places,
• The common characteristic is modification or replacement of existing
institutional arrangements governing possession and use of land.]
• Nonetheless, any revision or reform of a country’s land laws can still be an
intensely political process, as reforming land policies serves to change
relationships within and between communities, as well as between
communities and the state.

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 Table in next slide is showing the possible
government intervention in land and housing
development

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 Type of Full control Provision Subsidy Regulation none
intervention
In Inputs
Land Complete Public Provision of Subsidy on land Land registration:;
Ownership public land for for low-income Taxation of vacant
low-income housing land
housing
Building State control on Gov’t owned Subsidy on BM Lower building
Materials (BM) BM production BM industries for low-income standards for low
housing income housing
Labour Building Low-interest Use informal sector
brigades credit for in Government
construction projects
sector
Finance Gov’t budget Gov’t housing Subsidy on Mandatory saving
allocation for grants or low- housing loans schemes to
housing interest loan mobilise housing
funds
In Production
Enterprise State Enterprise National Subsidies on Laws to ensure
for all houses Housing low-income production of low-
construction Agencies housing income houses

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 Government Participation In Land
Development
• State attempts at integrated development
– Compulsory land acquisition
– Land readjustment
– Land sharing
– Land pooling
– Land consolidation
• Limitations to state involvement
– Coordination among agencies
– Lack of competency

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• Government assistance to the Private Sector
– The question of standard
• High standard?
• Appropriate standard?
– The option of multiple standard
• For the rich
• For the poor
– Assistance through infrastructure development

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• Legitimizing and improving existing
settlements
– Use base land right
– Regularizing informal settlements
– Planning control

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 • Land Management for sustainable
development can be seen in the next slide

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week 12 PL 6112 Land and Housing Development 14
 Summary
• Previous lecture
• Urban Land Politics
• Government Participation In Land
Development
– State attempts at integrated development
– Limitations to state involvement
– Legitimizing and improving existing settlements

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