TRACK 05: Legal Environment for Effective (Good) Governance and Efficient (Sustainable) Use of Land

 

Co-chairs: Rachelle Alterman, Leonie Jansen

Almost all countries have laws, regulations and government institutions that determine a significant number of issues related to planning. These issues range from procedural matters that affect quality of governance, to substantive policies and instruments that may enable the creation of “definite spaces” and sustainable land use.  However, the governance aspects of planning often encounter “fuzzy responsibilities”.  In recent years planning law (comprised of legislation and court decisions) faces additional challenges that go beyond the domestic domains into the even fuzzier, global arena. Can the laws and institutions that govern planning meet the challenges posed by climate change, sustainability, and increasing uncertainty?  Are planning laws geared to handle distributive justice issues within cities, countries, and across borders? This track aims to provide a platform for sharing research on any of the following and related topics:

  • Statutory (regulatory) planning systems and instruments: How well can they accommodate emerging economic, socio-demographic and environmental realities?
  • Governance structures and procedures: How does planning law structure the relationships between central governmental control, local government, markets, and non-governmental organizations?
  • How does the law frame public participation and dispute resolution;
  • Regulatory land use instruments: local statutory plans, zoning, building permits, agreements with developers, “exactions” or “planning gain”, regulation of open space and natural resources, historic-building regulation and other;
  • Property rights: tensions between public/ private rights and responsibilities; land for public services, customary collective / private rights, expropriation, compensation, land readjustment, taxation of land values, transfer or development rights.

Contributions may look at the general theory of planning and law or investigate particular issues, focusing either on a particular country or cross-nationally. Since legal and planning systems vary greatly from country to country, authors should make the legal structures and procedures as transparent as possible.