Instruments of land policy: Four types of intervention

This chapter describes the basic mechanisms through which scarcity is impacted using four criteria derived from policy analysis: effectiveness, efficiency, legitimacy, and practicability. International comparison shows that many problems faced by planners in connection with land scarcity are similar, but the responses are often different. In 1960, Germany introduced a system of public reference land values to prevent speculation on the land market. Winrich Voß and Jorn Bannert illustrate empirically how it works in relation to land policy. Expropriation is one of the standard instruments of land policy. Expropriation can be applied for housing or even shopping centres. Land can only be expropriated for infrastructure projects such as pipelines. Land use plans are the most standard instrument of land use planning. For the Dutch context, this form of land use plans provides an efficient, effective, and accepted form of cost recovery for the municipalities.