Value Capture and Land Policies

Attention to value capture as a source of public revenue has been increasing in the United States and internationally as some governments experience declines in revenue from traditional sources and others face rapid urban population growth and require large investments in public infrastructure.

Privately funded improvements by land-owners can increase the value of their land and property. Public actions, such as investments in infrastructure, the provision of public services, and planning and land use regulation, can also affect the value of land and property. Value capture is a means to realize as public revenue some portion of that increase in value through various revenue-raising instruments.

This book, based on the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s sixth annual land policy conference in May 2011, examines the concept of value capture, its forms, and applications. The first section, on the conceptual framework and history of value capture, reviews its relationship to compensation for partial takings; the long history of value capture policies in Britain and France; and the remarkable expansion of tax increment financing in California. The second section reviews the application of particular instruments of value capture, including the conversion of rural to urban land in China, town planning schemes in India, and community benefit agreements. The third section focuses on ends instead of means and examines the use of value capture by community land trusts to provide affordable housing, the use of land development to finance transit, and the use of various fees to fund airports. The final section explores potential extensions of value capture mechanisms to tax-exempt nonprofits and to the management of state trust lands in the United States.

This volume features the papers presented at the Lincoln Institute’s sixth annual Land Policy Conference in June 2011.

About the Editors

Gregory K. Ingram was president and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy from 2005 to 2014.

Yu-Hung Hong was a fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Land Value Capture: Types and Outcomes, Gregory K. Ingram and Yu-Hung Hong

Conceptual Frameworks and Historical Experiences

2. Land Value Capture and Justice, Susan S. Fainstein

3. Takings and Givings: The Analytics of Land Value Capture and Its Symmetries with Takings Compensation, Perry Shapiro

Commentary: Henry E. Smith

4. The Unearned Increment: Property and the Capture of Betterment Value in Britain and France, Philip A. Booth

Commentary: Louis G. H. Albrechts

5. Special Assessments in California: 35 Years of Expansion and Restriction, Dean J. Misczynski

Commentary: Carol E. Heim

Land Value Capture Instruments

6. Collecting Land Value Through Public Land Leasing, John E. Anderson

Commentary: Guanzhong James Wen

7. A Better Way to Grow?: Town Planning Schemes as a Hybrid Readjustment Process in Ahmedabad, India, Bishwapriya Sanyal and Chandan Deuskar

Commentary: Bipasha Baruah

8. To What Extent Are Property-Related Taxes Effective Value Capture Instruments?, Lawrence C. Walters

Commentary: Jay K. Rosengard

9. Community Benefits Agreements in a Value Capture Context, Laura Wolf-Powers

Commentary: Julian A. Gross

Specific Applications

10. Science Parks and Land Value Capture, Michael I. Luger and Justyna Dabrowska

Commentary: Weiping Wu

11. The Affordability Challenge: Inclusionary Housing and Community Land Trusts in a Federal System, Richard P. Voith and Susan M. Wachter

Commentary: Rachel G. Bratt

12. Transit Value Capture: New Town Codevelopment Models and Land Market Updates in Tokyo and Hong Kong, Jin Murakami

Commentary: Zhirong Jerry Zhao

13. Airport Improvement Fees, Benefit Spillovers, and Land Value Capture Mechanisms, Anming Zhang

Commentary: Jeffrey P. Cohen

Potential Extensions

14. Assessing the Nonprofit Property Tax Exemption: Should Nonprofit Entities Be Taxed for Using Local Public Goods?, Joseph J. Cordes

Commentary: Woods Bowman

15. Experimenting with Land Value Capture on Western State Trust Land, Susan K. Culp and Dan W. Hunting

Commentary: Amy W. Ando