Abstract
The overall aim of this book is to set forth debate on alternative practices for land use management in urban development and public infrastructure projects in Asia. Land use laws are the most powerful tools that governments have to implement public projects with large social and economic gains. While there are numerous books that have examined specific methods of land assembly for development and financing of public infrastructure, there is a gap in the literature on a comprehensive treatise that looks at the whole range of methods from their institutional context, suitability for purpose and equity considerations. It is hoped that this volume will go some way towards filling that gap by presenting the basis and approaches for land use management that have been used in Asia, and suggesting key principles and components of equitable land use management practices for development and financing of infrastructure. It may be emphasised here that this volume does not examine the expropriation or confiscation of inherited and private property for land reform or other social transformative purposes, which while important, are out of scope of this book. Land is a critical resource for infrastructure development. It is a necessary input in an infrastructure project and can also be used to finance infrastructure by unlocking the value of land through the sale of publicly held land or other assets. Infrastructure projects require large and often contiguous land parcels, procured in a time-bound manner.
Scale economies associated with the provisioning of infrastructure services, particularly those operating in concentrated geographical areas, make it difficult for competitive markets to provide many infrastructure services, leading to market failure. From time to time, privately held land is required for public purposes, such as for infrastructure development or other public goods. In countries that favour private property rights, procuring land for public infrastructure through a market process is challenging. The functioning of land markets is constrained by infrequent transactions, information asymmetries and lumpiness of investment. The situation is further exacerbated in the case of land for infrastructure, as on the buy side of the land market, there is frequently only one large buyer of land, which often is the state or its agencies. On the sell side of the land market, there are numerous landowners who exercise different degrees of power, cooperation and sophistication in the land market depending on the size of their landholding, their personal situation and ability to hold out.
This book is to set forth debate on alternative practices for land use management in urban development and public infrastructure projects in Asia. The objective is to streamline the discussion that follows on land management strategies based on core objectives and principles on which models and tools work rather than their nomenclature. This book is organised in four parts to present a comprehensive treatise on the subject.
Part 1: Bases of Land Ownership and Land Use Rights and Management
Part 2: Current Challenges for Land Use Management
Part 3: Innovations in Planning and Land Use Management Strategies
Part 4: Toward Equitable Land Use for Infrastructure
Obtaining rights over land can be complicated by hurdles imposed by geography, settlement patterns, conflicting cultures, sociopolitical factors and land use problems unique to each country. Equitable land use for Asian infrastructure identifies policies that can balance the rights and interests of first peoples, informal settlers and rural landowners against the development imperatives of land procurement for the greater public good. The collected chapters propose and assess promising models that might be customised to local conditions, such as long-term land leasing with options to buy. This timely volume will be insightful for policy makers, practitioners, academics and students interested in instructive case studies of the state of Asian land registration, eminent domain and redevelopment in situations of vulnerable communities.
PART I: Bases of Land Ownership and Land Use Rights and Management
This part of the book mainly deals with the challenges associated with compulsory acquisition of land using statutory powers of state, which have led to the development and use of alternative models of land assembly in some countries. A universal model of land assembly for public purposes that is suitable for all jurisdictions is a distant dream. However, there are possibilities of identifying core principles on which land should be procured that are equitable to all parties involved and lead to outcomes that are Pareto efficient.
PART II: Current Challenges for Land Use Management
Especially this part of the book highlights certain issues in Chapter four (4) about the process of land readjustment, which has been used in a number of Asian developing countries—mainly sponsored by the Japanese government—and has been one of the most significant international collaborations in urban planning in the 20th century. When such processes succeed, they can replace old approaches and herald significant changes within the planning cultures. By reviewing such changes, it is possible to understand how the long-term implementation of the planning instruments influence countries’ institutions and cities’ environment.
PART III: Innovations in Planning and Land Use Management Strategies
Part III expands the discussion of the previous section by exploring other approaches through which land use management strategies could be made equitable with examples from four Asian countries. Using rigorous analysis, the chapters in this section discuss the practical ways: An Introduction to Equitable Land Use for Asian Infrastructure in which land could be procured and managed for infrastructure that not only will improve availability but will also reduce discontent among affected landowners. In Chapter 7, Shukla argues that over the years, the process of compulsory acquisition has evolved to better compensate the affected landowners, to the extent of paying additional monetary compensation or solatium. Using examples of recent amendments to land acquisition acts in India, Shukla argues that the amendments are polity and law’s indirect acknowledgement that fair compensation extends beyond the market value of land. With reference to an existing body of literature discussed in this chapter, she argues the value of land as a cumulative value of usefulness (or functioning’s) for its owner, of which the monetary value is only one of the functioning’s. While there are many nonmonetary functions to land, which deserve compensation, Shukla’s discussion is limited to measurable monetary losses associated with land.
Advancing the discussion on adequate monetary compensation for the affected landowners, Shukla argues that compensation extends beyond the market value of land to include other forms of financial losses that compulsory acquisition imposes.
PART IV: Towards Equitable Land Use for Infrastructure
As the final part of the book, an alternative land use management strategy called land trust is put forward as a management strategy for infrastructure projects. This special land trust model separates An Introduction to Equitable Land Use for Asian Infrastructure ownership of land from use through a trust structure comprising entruster (original owner of the property), entrustee (or the land trustee) and the beneficiary (or the lessee of land). The model, arguably, provides enhanced financial incentives for the hesitant or disorganised owners to participate in infrastructure development projects. In Chapter 10, Guild presents a qualitative case study of two land acquisition cases highlighting the empirical effect of legal reforms on land use policy over time in Indonesia. Under the Suharto regime, land acquisition in the public interest was often coercive, with the government determining one-sided compensation with no recourse to appeal. The legal basis for this process was Presidential Decree 55/1993, which gave the provincial governor the ultimate authority to rule on the evaluation and eviction.
In conclusion that as Fukuyama reminded us, cultural distinctiveness has played and will continue to play an important role in Asia’s success in upgrading its development status (Fukuyama, 1995, p. 335). Law and financial engineering are not always going to be a complete substitute for trust for often cultural virtues must underpin the development of a widely accepted legal, business system. Binding rules, shared concepts and impartial courts are not always needed, but knowing they are there for everyone’s benefit and guaranteeing fairness is reassuring and ultimately indispensable as society becomes more sophisticated and diverse. If governments and sponsors were instead to explain to their affected landowners that they are guaranteed to be accountable by legitimate and impartial arbiters and honest brokers (Stillman, 2008), the persistent struggle to achieve more efficient and equitable land use balances might become an easier and less confrontational road for everyone.
