Still vacant after all these years – Evaluating the efficiency of property-led urban regeneration

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.Peer reviewedPostprin

Managing Urban Land: The Case for Urban Partnership Zones

Multiple ownership of land can act as a significant barrier to brownfield redevelopment. Despite renewed interest in compulsory purchase, it is unlikely to become the normal remedy for multiple ownership, owing to its cost and complexity. Drawing on international experience and recent research, this article proposes the concept of an Urban Partnership Zone, in which existing landowners would be entitled to participate alongside the local authority and a chosen development partner in a joint-venture redevelopment company. Combined with greater planning certainty and other benefits, this innovation would enable the development process to operate more rapidly without immediate compulsory purchase.Brownfield Land, Compulsory Purchase, Development Process, Urban Redevelopment, Multiple Land Ownership, Owner Participation,

Ownership constraints to brownfield redevelopment

The authors examine the nature and significance of ownership constraints within the urban redevelopment process. They suggest that such constraints derive from the distinctiveness of land as a commodity, the imperfect nature of the land market, the behavioural characteristics of landowners, and the institutional context for land ownership, exchange, and development. From this, they propose a common definition of ownership constraints as a basis for their practical classification. This divides ownership constraints between those that concern deficiencies in, or limitations to, the extent of ownership rights in potential development land and those that relate specifically to the strategies, interests, and actions of those who hold such rights. The various types of ownership constraints that fall under these headings are then explored, with research presented into the extent to which they each disrupted plans to use, market, develop, or purchase eighty large redevelopment sites in four British cities between 1991 and 1995.