The Commission of Inquiry into Land Tenures

Abstract

The Commission of Inquiry into Land Tenures has proposed that the Crown should displace much of the private sector's role in land development, and that the Crown should reap many of the gains from changes in land use. If implemented, these proposals would create an administrative bureaucracy, which would need to make arbitrary imposts upon individuals, which would have an incentive to act as a monopolist contrary to the public interest, which would require considerable legislative or judicial rule-making in order to estimate different components of land value, and which would effectively remove private incentive to use land efficiently. It is difficult to understand why land is singled out for such special treatment.