Public and private benefits in urban development agreements

The paper is aimed at exploring the advantages of public authorities within the context of negotiating Public Private Partnership (PPP). In the last years many European cities have developed complex urban interventions through innovative forms of cooperation between the public and private sector. Given the limitations in public funds to cover investments and the need to increase the quality and efficiency of public services, these kind of Public Private Partnership allow public and private sectors to define different kind of agreements with respect to future urban development interventions. Starting from the analysis of the urban developments under PPP carried out in Lombardy Region over the last 15 years, the paper provides an overview of the surplus values as it results from land use change and intensification with aim of pointing out its allocation between public and private parties. Despite the difficulty of performing an ex-post evaluation of surplus value, meant as difference between the asset value before and after transformation, mainly for the limited and incomplete economic data recorded by the agreement, some preliminary insights have been drawn and a first operational framework is suggested in order to evaluate the sustainability of the urban development interventions under a public perspective.