The strategic use of time-limited property rights in land-use planning: Evidence from Switzerland

Abstract

While land-use plans are regularly revised, property rights are extremely stable over time. Yet, the stability of property rights resulting from the current conception of exclusive ownership makes the implementation of land-use plans increasingly complicated, difficult and long. Planners recognized the need for more flexibility in many urban contexts to effectively steer spatial development in the already built environment. Relying on a detailed case study carried out in the municipality of Bienne, Switzerland, this paper examines how a strategic use of long-term ground leases granted on municipal land can allow for increased flexibility in planning. Ground leases are a policy instrument leading to a time-limited division of the bundle of rights between a public landowner and the ground lease holder, who becomes the owner of the facilities on the land for up to one hundred years. The strategic role of ground leases in urban planning remains largely unexplored. This article shows that ground leases are an empirical and practical response of planning authorities to the inflexibility of property rights in given situations where more flexibility would be needed. Public actors can use ground leases to implement an active land policy leading to a better allocation of land to specific projects and to a more precise control of building activity. By analyzing the role of ground leases at the interface between planning and property, this article aims to contribute to a better understanding of the complex relationship between land-use planning and property rights.