Land value in urban development agreements: Methodological perspectives and operational recommendations

This paper is focused on land value in urban development agreements based on public-private partnerships. The first part discusses the topic in relation to the neoliberal planning model emerged during the nineties which has characterized the most part of urban developments until today. According to this model, urban development agreements assume a negotiated variation from the local statutory plan, thus bringing flexibility to the planning systems, as well as making the planning choices more discretional than before. Very often the planning gain of developers is not balanced by the value capture from local authorities. In this context the ex-ante evaluation of urban developments proposed by private developers assumes a strategic role to support the negotiation process and to guarantee good public performances within the complex decisional frame where private players and public administration act. For this reason, the paper introduces an operational tool to compare the land value before the development and the surplus value generated by the intervention. The public perspective adopted in the this study has addressed the evaluation with the aim to show how to achieve a fair balance between private gains and public benefits.