Public Entrepreneurship in Private Land Markets: Contracting Dilemmas around Selling Amsterdam’s Major Prison

Abstract

Most planning theories are based on the assumption that there is a homogenous public interest. However, planning agencies are driven by multiple and conflicting interests in practice. This article conceptualises and empirically investigates these interests in an “extreme case” of active public land policy: the Dutch state selling Amsterdam’s Bijlmer prison. Three types of dilemmas or conflicting interests that arose in the Bijlmer prison case are examined: prioritising price or social value, organizing a private transaction or a public tender, and choosing flexibility or certainty. Although these are matters of principle, subjective, pragmatic and context-specific choices determine the ultimate balance.