Exploring the valuation of compulsory purchase compensation

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse how Dutch Compulsory Purchase (CP) compensation is decided on and to explore to what extent the valuation of the CP compensation is assessed by professionals within a range of 10 per cent (higher or lower) difference. Design/methodology/approach: The authors study CP compensation using the Dutch Legal Intelligence database, assessing every publicly available court decision and comparing the compensation that is offered in the voluntary negotiations and during the CP procedure in court. Findings: The results show that there are many uncertainties in the valuation process of CP that lead to a broad range of valuation outcomes. In 94 legal CP cases from the Netherlands, the final offer of compensation in court was on average 56.7 per cent higher than the last compensation offer from the expropriator. The differences in valuation were related to several aspects including different systems of valuation and different interpretations of the CP legislation. Originality/value: A central issue in the CP procedure is the amount of compensation that the landowner receives. There are few researchers who have studied how accurate CP compensation is appraised in practise. This is one of the first attempts internationally to empirically conduct an analysis of CP compensation values

Unfolding Farm Practices: Working Toward Sustainable Food Production in the Netherlands and Spain

The modernization of agriculture has caused and continues to cause an increasing disconnection between farming, nature, and society, which has also created a series of social, economic, and ecological crises in the food chain. Case study research of farmers responding to this situation can show us what changes are required to encourage a reconnection between farming, nature, and society. This paper provides ethnographic case study research of two farms: one situated in a productive polder in the Netherlands, and the other in a disadvantaged mountainous area in Galicia, Spain. They both employ "novelty production," farmer-driven adaptations to the farm, seen as a socio-ecological system. These novelties change the input-output relations on farms and result in adaptations in different farming domains (technical, economic, and socio-organizational), which we see as "unfolding" farming practices. This paper examines how these farmers have sustained and improved the socio-ecological performance of their farms and how these changes have led to a shift in the farm as a socio-ecological system and changed the configuration and boundaries of the farms. In conclusion we look at prospects for this approach being supported at a wider level

Towards More Balanced Territorial Relations—The Role (and Limitations) of Spatial Planning as a Governance Approach

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