TRACK 03: LAW

Planning and legal procedures for land-use and transport policies 

Chairs:

• Rachelle Alterman, Technion University, Israel
• Florence Lerique, Université Bordeaux Montaigne 
• Tristan Claus, KU Leuven

When grounded in laws and regulations, spatial planning intervenes in the allocation and distribution of land and development. It thereby intervenes to a lesser or greater extent in private property rights or market expectations, from regulating what may or may not be built on specific parcels of land down to outright expropriation. Research questions range from procedural-administrative processes, through substantive planning goals and their expression in land use regulation, and all the way into the global environmental arena. Can the laws and institutions that govern planning meet the challenges posed by climate change, sustainability, demographic changes and increasing economic and political uncertainties?

This track aims to provide a platform for sharing research on any topic that connects planning and law with property rights. Examples of topic areas: 

• Statutory (regulatory) planning systems and instruments: What are the challenges within a given country, or comparatively.
• Governance structures and procedures: How does planning law structure the relationships between central governmental control, local government, markets, and non-governmental organisations?
• Legitimacy of planning interventions: How does the law frame public participation, stakeholder involvement, lobbyism, and dispute resolution;
• Regulatory instruments of spatial planning: How well do instruments work, such as local statutory plans, land use plans, building permits, expropriation, compensation,
• regulation of agricultural land, open space and natural resources, heritage-building regulation,
• Land value capture through agreements with developers, developer obligations, land readjustment, taxation of land values (betterment tax, etc.), transfer of development rights, expropriation, compensation,
• Theory of property rights: How to deal with tensions between public and private rights and responsibilities (i.e. with land for public services, customary collective or private rights).
• How can planning law contribute to the environment and climate change challenges: Sobriety (frugal use of land) for the compact city, permeability of the soil, cleaning of contaminated land, etc.?

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 terms they use as transparent as possible.

Keywords:  Spatial planning law, land use; land policy, property rights, housing regulations, development control, participation in planning procedures; governance of spatial planning; land-value capture; frugal use of land resources