10 Urban Land Policy

Dr. Kavita Arora

I .Introduction

With the increasing urban population cities are facing the new challenges of planning and allocating the limited land for different urban purposes. Under the conditions of rapid urban growth the provision of roads, of open spaces, or urban transport,of sewerage and sanitation, all are facing the challenge of land crunch. There has been a continuing concern over ‘unwarranted’ and ‘un-precedent’ increases in urban land values over the period. Therefore urban land policy should be based on the knowledge of the dynamics of urban growth. This module will help you to learn about the need and formulation of urban land policywhich considered an important area of study in the urban geography. Broadly, the module is organized into two main parts the first part is about the different perspective of urban land policy and the second part discusses the urban land policy in India. At the end of this module you will be able to understand

a) Concept of Urban Land

b) Urban Land Policy and its Economic, Social and Administrative/Legal aspects

C) Urban land policy in India

II. Concept of Urban Land

There are few more important aspects to the life of any society than land and the relations between land and human kind. Economists recognise land as being one of the three economic fundamentals of society along with labour and capital. The ownership of land has, throughout the ages and in all societies, been a major factor in determining class structures and relations and in the allocation and exercise of political power. Equally the many and often conflicting uses to which land-sometimes the same plot of land-can be put have given rise both to complex laws and serious disputes in many societies.

What is clear, however, is that land tenure is concerned with the complicated collection of rights to own and use space and it is therefore instrumental in shaping the spatial development ,as well as the broad social relationships, within a community. In Ratcliffe’s view (1976, p. 21) systems of land tenure embody those legal, contractual or customary arrangements where by individuals or communities through land. .. land without the dimension of tenure is a meaningless concept. The principal forms of land holding have been listed by Bracewell-Milnes(1982) as: private property with single ownership, private property with communal ownership, state property and joint ventures including the lease of land by the state to a private person or vice versa.

Harland Bartholomew states that “the land we are concerned with can be described as land now used for purpose that are characteristically urban” In view of this statement the land devoted to urban use and water bodies associated with this land considered urban land”. Traditionally urban space above the surface has not been included in the study of urban land. Most of the land of the city is devoted to fulfilling one or more functions or types of utilization. Sometimes the use made of the land is intensive and other times the use made of urban land might be extensive, but in any case the land is satisfying some need of the urban residents. To manage the different use of urban land requires urban land policy (Harland Bartholomew,1955).

Box I: Urban Land Policy: An Understanding

“Urban” indicates anything to do with human settlements (large cities as well as small villages) with the exception of purely “countryside” activities or considerations (agriculture, forestry, countryside recreation and military activities, countryside conservation, etc.).

“Land” will denote the land as such, – including water – as a plot, a property or an item of real estate (with the exceptions mentioned above). A correct definition of the word “land” in this connection is very important, but at the same time very difficult. All interest in land stems from the use which can be made of it: to construct something on it, to use it for agricultural, forestral, mineral-extracting or recreational purposes to use it as a collateral or to leave it idle. This report will not deal with the very specialised questions of air-rights or rights to below-ground minerals or similar.

“Urban land” means here such land areas which are needed for urban activities at present and within sight.

“Policy” is used here to indicate “the way, as accepted by decision-makers, to attain one or more given goals”. This definition thus includes the need for a formulation or specification of one or more goals, and a description of the way, mainly by applying different instruments, in which such goals might be attained.

“Land use policy” denotes primarily those goals, programmes and actions which are used by public authorities in order to steer the land use into the wished direction. One of the main instruments of land use policy is urban and regional planning.

“Land policy” means here the measures of public authorities (usually state, and municipalities) in order to implement their land use policy. These measures include acquisition and disposal of land, impacts on land prices (e.g. through taxation), development of land ownership and tenure systems (land reforms), and they aim at the reaching of the goals of land use policy, and some goals of social policy, etc.

“Urban land policy” means land policy which concerns especially urban land. In practice, one of the main goals of it is the promotion of land use planning and implementation of different kinds of urban plans.

Based on the above, the (International Federation for Housing and Planning ) IFHP Working Party on Urban Land Policy has formulated its aims and tasks

Source: Pekka V. Virtanen, Jan van ‘t Verlaat , URBAN LAND POLICY Goals and Instruments ,1999, Working Party on Urban Land Policy, International Federation for Housing and Planning (IFHP)

III.  Urban Land Policy: Economic, Social and Administrative/Legal aspects of land policy

Requirement of urban land policy situate between two extremes: the process of spontaneous urbanization and the process of deliberate urban intervention. This part provide you descriptive account of contemporary urban land problems and policies and this will also analyse the theoretical bases of these policies. The problem with urban land is that the problem of urban expansion specially in agrarian developing countries confronts society with grave difficulties concerning the utilization of urban land. In these newly urbanized countries the economic system is changing so the already existed urban problems have taken new forms. The old methods of treating these problems are, hence, became inoperative and the new methods to deal with them not yet been developed. In general urban government in any country intervene in urban affairs in three different but interrelated ways (a) by using the different fiscal devices (b) By legal restriction of private rights to use urban land in certain ways (c) By direct physical undertaking of urban development projects.

The first type of urban intervention , the application of various types of fiscal devices, includes policy instruments such as the property tax, controls on the pricing of urban goods and services and direct governmental subsidies and grants. Almost all the countries have the provision of property tax and in recent years various versions of the simple property tax have appeared, these includes a different types of development levies, speculation taxes and site value taxes. But since they all have tendency to get affected by socio-economic forces which determine the structure of the land market as a whole, they remain ineffective in solving the urban land problems.

Controls on the pricing of urban good and services include matters such as rent control, road pricing, legislated limits on mortgage rates and so on They definitely effect urban land prices and land uses but they tend to overlook the fundamental cause of the problems and they only treat the superficial symptoms therefore relying on them often in the end can complicate the problem further.

Direct government subsidies and grants involve a whole range of policy instruments such as the subsidization of mass transit, the allocation of funds to low income housing programs, the provisions of grants to community services and so on though these are very important interventions but they are largely depends on the public revenues the continued feasibility of these measures requires that in a long period aggregate expenditures keep pace with aggregate public revenues. This in turn requires that the demands of revenue absorbing sectors keep pace with revenue producing sector. Another drawback of these measures is that they are tended to deal with the symptoms rather than with the fundamental causes.

The second type of urban interventions are legal restrictions on land uses these includes planning devices such as official plan provisions, zoning ordinances, subdivision controls, building codes etc.

Legal restrictions are technically potential for significantly modifying the operation of the urban land market however in practice because of political reasons they are formulated in the way that their impacts on the land market can be restrained.

The third type of public urban intervention s is direct physical land development or redevelopment. It includes activities such as the provision of various types of urban infrastructure and social overhead facilities, public housing construction, urban renewal, the laying out of industrial estates, land banking and so on These activities can play a crucial role in shaping the spatial configuration of urban land prices and uses yet ironically this type of intervention remains virtually incapable of dealing with real urban land problems because in most of the countries publicly serviced land is left to be exchanged and utilized by various private owners and users all of them have private interest and therefore their action lead to the uncontrolled, unexpected and unintended spatial configurations, unexpected urban land prices and numerous other problems.

Land is multi-dimensional in nature. Too often, policy has focussed on one aspect of land to the exclusion of other aspects and not surprisingly such a policy has failed to achieve its goals, because it failed to take account of the multi-dimensional nature of land.

Land is the foundation of shelter, food, work and a sense of nationhood. Land is therefore inseparable from the concept of a civil society and it is inseparable from social and economic relationships within that society. Policies about land are policies about society,how it shall be organised, and governed and what relationship there shall be between the different groups and people in society. Land policies then must be all-embracing and cannot be based on any assumption that some land relations are of little or no account and other are the “correct” ones because this is tantamount to saying that some groups or people are of little or no account and others are the preferred ones. Such policies tended to be formulated during the colonial period particularly in respect of customary and statutory land relations but countries would be well advised to be extremely cautious before either continuing or adopting under international aid pressure, similar policies now. Equally, it must be said, land policy cannot be allowed to go by default; a national land policy is at least as important as a national foreign or defence policy.

IV. International perspective

In 1975, at a time when two-thirds of the world’s population was still rural and urbanization was less prominent on the UN agenda, the UN General Assembly established the United Nations Habitat and Human Settlements Foundation (UNHHSF), the first official UN body dedicated to urbanization, to address urban growth. The first international UN conference to fully recognize the challenge of urbanization – Habitat I –was held in 1976 in Vancouver, Canada. Land had a critical part in the total Conference theme. In this some significant pointes emerged, such as:

(a)   The critical importance of land is emphasized, as in the following words: ‘land, because of its unique nature and the crucial role it plays in human settlements, cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market’ (United Nations, 1976: 61, para 3).

(b)  The treatment of land is very wide, under seven headings as follows: land resource management, control of land use changes, recapturing plus value, public ownership, patterns of ownership, increase in useable land, and information needs (United Nations, 1976: 4, para 4).

(c)  In this treatment the role of land is explored within the purpose of the Habitat Conference, namely the planning and development of human settlement.In brief, therefore, not only was Vancouver Habitat a peak in the fostering of international awareness of the planning and development of human settlements, but it also pushed into the forefront the particular role of land in this process.

At the beginning of the period initiated a new venture in international interest in land, namely the International Centre for Land Policy Studies (ICLPs) establish in 1968 .This had six initial aims:

(1)  to promote and provide a framework for research and surveys into problems and proposals concerning land policies;

(2)  to encourage education and research in the field of land policy;

(3)  to collect information relating to such matters as land policy programmes, land use legislation, taxation, subsidies and land prices; to interpret such information for wider understanding; and to provide for the exchange of such information;

(4)  to coordinate knowledge and experience gained in different countries and to promote collaboration amongst individual researchers and institutes through the exchange of information;

(5)  to organize symposia and meetings of experts;

(6)  to be available for advice and consultation to government agencies and institutions dealing with land policies.

As part of this programme there has been published a Newlsetter of the International Centre . These contain a review of current matters of interest in land policy around the world, as for example conferences and events, publications, literature reviews. Stimulated from the same source there was published in 1980 an international review of land policy, covering methods of analysis, state of the art and particular countries’ problems of implementation (Koenigsberger and Groak, 1980). And finally, perhaps the culmination of this blossoming of international interest in land policy arose in the First World International Conference on the subject, sponsored by the International Centre for Land Policy Studies and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in June 1980 in Cambridge, Massachussetts.

However at the same time, from 1978 to 1996, due to low financial and political support, Habitat struggled to provide meaningful contributions addressing the negative impacts of massive urban growth, particularly in developing countries (UN Habitat 2015a).

In 1996, the United Nations held a second conference on cities – Habitat II – in Istanbul, Turkey, toset fresh goals for the new millennium. Adopted by 171 countries, the political document – called the “Habitat Agenda” – that came out of this “city summit” contained over 100 commitments and 600 recommendations. The Habitat conferences are the United Nations Conferences on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development. They are not events of UN-Habitat, but rather they are conferences hosted by the UN system at large and the UN General Assembly is the decision-making body. They only take place every 20 years.

From 1997 to 2002, Habitat – guided by the Habitat Agenda and later the United Nations Millennium Declaration from 2000 – underwent a major revitalization. In 2002, through a Resolution by the UN General Assembly, Habitat’s status was elevated to a fully-fledged programme in the UN system, giving birth to UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. It also strengthened and clarified the mandate of UN-Habitat to become the focal point for all urbanization and human settlement matters within the UN system and to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities. The perception of the impact and influence of UN-Habitat has improved over the years. However, while UN-Habitat is perceived to provide valuable contributions to policy and norms development around urban issues, practical support to local governments and to be able to build strong partnerships, it is also perceived to play only a niche role at both the global and national level.

UN-Habitat works to achieve sustainable urbanization, which they define as well-planned, well governed, and efficient cities and other human settlements. Within that wide range of relevant issues, UN-Habitat (2015d) also acknowledges land as a major issue in the urbanization process in both developed and developing countries and that addressing land issues is a prerequisite to sound urban development. UN Habitat as relevant UN agency perceives the lack of (clear) land policies as problematic, as it leads to uncoordinated city growth, sprawl and crowded slum. However, it also identifies excessive regulations such as strict zoning as drivers of urban sprawl and horizontal, low density expansion of urban spaces (UN Habitat 2015d). UN-Habitat frequently emphasizes the importance of clarified land ownership and property issues for neighborhood redevelopment and slum upgrading programs. Unfortunately, standard land tools and regulations often remain inadequate in meeting the land needs of slums, where exact land parcels are difficult to identify and land and property units often display overlapping and sometimes conflicting interests. In order to overcome these problems, UN-Habitat (2015d and 2015f) highlights the importance of efficient urban land use planning. Both expansions and densification plans are needed to enable cities to accommodate the expected growth in a sustainable way, provide for a rational urban structure to minimize transport and service delivery costs, optimize the use of land, and support the protection and organization of urban open spaces. (Stephanie Wunder – Ecologic Institut, Franziska Wolff – Öko-Institut.2015)

UN-Habitat’s own activities

UN-Habitat’s work covers a range of land issues, such as land tenure, provision of and access to public spaces, management, remedial and preventive policy responses to slums and urban sprawl, In its work, UN-Habitat provides technical support on land policy. National and city governments can use UN-Habitat’s expertise and regional policy frameworks in order to improve their land policies to ultimately reform their land systems. It also provides analysis and technical support on baseline surveys and benchmarking, project planning and implementation, and also helps to document and disseminate good practices. UN-Habitat also facilitates the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), an alliance of global, regional, and national partners. Founded in 2006, the network aims at contributing to poverty alleviation through land reform, improved land management, and security of tenure, particularly through the development and dissemination of “land tools”.

Recently Habitat III – conference was held in Quito 2016 from 17 – 20 October 2016 here Land policy was at centre stage. In this conference experts and UN delegates from around the world emphasized municipal finance as a key pillar of sustainable urban growth, noting the need for much greater levels of services and infrastructure in the coming decades. Cities need to mobilize local revenue sources, particularly land-based revenues, lay the groundwork for robust municipal debt markets, and improve legislation and collaboration across national, provincial, state and local governments.(Stephanie Wunder – Ecologic Institut, Franziska Wolff – Öko-Institut,2015)

V. Urban Land Policy in India

Before British rule there was no formal individual ownership of land in India. Urban and rural both lands belong to the ruler. A historical analysis of ancient Indian land policy suggests that tax on land played a pivotal part in the evolution and maintenance of the systems of governance. The history of Land Administration dates back to the olden days of kings and kingdoms. From times immemorial, land administration is considered as prime domain of the State. According to classical doctrine, all lands both urban and rural belong to the King / State which can alienate some of it for cultivation and other purposes to individuals. Right from the time of Manu, the Land Revenue has been a major source of income of the sovereign. During the Mauryan and Gupta periods, the revenue was collected by the paid officials, which resembles the present day Revenue Administration system. During the

Post Mauryan and Gupta periods, the State revenue was collected by donees of Brahmadeya, Devadana, and Agrahara Lands. The donees were feudal intermediaries who passed on a part of the revenue they collected to the King. Later, in place of the above Revenue Collectors, the Jagirdars, Subedars and Inamdars who were intermediaries passed on the revenue to the kings during the rule of Sultanates which extended for more than 300 years. During their rule the source of Revenue was two fold, religious and secular. The former called Zaker was due from the Muslims and Jigya which the non-Muslims had to pay. The process of Revenue administration was started by Sher Shah Suri (1540-45). It was continued and improved upon under the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akber (1556-1605). Todar Mal – greatest revenue expert who started his career under Sher Shah Suri joined in the service of Akbar, is remembered even to this day for evolving a system of revenue assessment and survey, a system which drew a balance between the demands of the State and needs of the subjects. The Revenue Administration during the regime of Mughals consisted of a heterogeneous class of persons, which included direct officials of the imperial administration, like the provincial governors, amils, or the qanungos, jagirdars (revenue -assignees) and their officials and agents, and representatives of the peasants like the village headmen (muqaddams) and the chaudhris.

With the advent of the British in India, the political and economic scenario underwent far reaching changes. The Revenue Administration was systematized scientifically during British rule by introducing “permanent settlement” (by Corn Wallis – 1793) and Ryotwarisystem (by Sir Thomas Munro -1802).

The British colonial administrators also introduced a system of registration of all land transactions relating to transfer of rights and title by private individuals. Since 1908 the Registration Department came to be added to the land administration into three basic units.

1. Survey settlement Department dealing with demarcation of boundaries of individual holdings, measurement of land, classification of lands, and determination of land revenue.

2. The Revenue Department dealing with demarcation of boundaries of individual holdings, and to decide disputes relating to transferring of land rights among the individuals or organisations and the Government apart from collection of land revenue from the land holders.

3. Registration Department dealing with Registration of all land transactions relating to immovable property (Land, Site or Building).

These three Departments invariably exist in every State of India. Their composition, powers, functions, administrative control etc., largely vary among the states. In this way during the two centuries of British rule (1757–1947), India’s traditional land ownership and land use patterns were changed with the introduction of the concept of “private property”.

The Indian Forest Act was passed in 1920, making all forest land government-owned. This de-legitimised the traditional community ownership systems in adivasi (tribal) societies. Land distribution under these systems became extremely unequal – rural society was polarised: landlords and rich peasants versus tenants and agricultural labourers. By the time of Independence in 1947, about 40% of India’s rural population was working as landless agricultural labour. With the concept of private property British government also introduce the doctrine of eminent domain and passed the Land Acquistion Act 1894 (Act I of 1894). This Act was later amended by Acts IV and X of 1914,XVII of 1919, XXXVIII of 1920. XIX of 1921, XXXVIII of 1923 XVI of 1933 and I of 1938.Eminent Domain is the power to take private property for public use by a State or national government. This law suggested that a person has a right not to be deprived of his property except through due process of law, which is conflicts with the right of State to acquire property under the doctrine of eminent domain. This act during the British period and after independence also for a long time remains the base for deciding the urban land rights.

Post- Independence Urban Land Policy

Level of urbanization in India is increasing In 1951 it was 17% which has increased to 31% in 2011. According to the world population prospects by the United Nations, 55% population of India will be urban by the year 2050. With this pattern of urbanization, the urban population of 377 million as in 2011 will be 915 million by the year 2050. The urban land is about 7.74 million hectares, which is 2.35% of the country’s total land area.

Urban planning in India is generally concerned with development of land. The Indian Constitution initially recognised ‘to acquire, hold and dispose of property’ as a fundamental right. Later on when land was to be compulsorily acquired ‘compensation’ at market price was payable. With the enactment of Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act 1976 that attempted nationalisation of vacant urban land by paying nominal amount, the term compensation was replaced by the term ‘amount’. Finally the fundamental right to property was deleted from the Constitution. The first articulation of the Urban Land Policy was proposed by the Urban Land Policy Committee (Ministry of Health) appointed by the Government of India in 1965. The Committee articulated the following Land Policy Objectives

1. To achieve optimum social use of urban land;

2. To make land available in adequate quantity, at right time and for reasonable prices to both public authorities and individuals;

3. To encourage cooperative community effort and bona fide individual builders in the field of land development, housing and construction;

4. To prevent concentration of land ownership in a few private hands and especially to safeguard the interests of the poor and under – privileged sections of the urban society.

Further the Committee observed that to realise the objectives “there is no escape from large scale public acquisition if the question of guiding urban development or the provision of adequate housing and other facilities is to be tackled effectively and large scale advance acquisition of land would really be in the interests of the society as a whole. It is by far the best and perhaps the only way to put an end to speculation in land and to capture subsequent increases in land values. These surpluses, where realised by the public authorities, should benefit the community in more ways than one.” Therefore the role models of Indian Town Planners — Delhi Master Plan, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar and Navi Mumbai were all based on public ownership of land.

Box 2: Important Legislations

1. Town Planning legislation Including Urban Development Authority Act,1984
2. Municipal Enactments including building buyelaws
3. Slum Improvement and clearance Act,1973
4. Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act ,1976
5. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015

However, securing large-scale public ownership of land implied compulsory acquisition of land. There was considerable discontent amongst the original landowners about the manner in which compensation was determined and paid. The Land Acquisition Act 1894 initially provided the date of declaration of intention to acquire the land as the reference date for determining the market value. However no time limit was laid down for actual payment of compensation. 1984 amendments introduced the time limit of three years and also provided for payment of interest from the date of award to actual payment or possession of land and solatium of 30% of market value. However the market value is to be reckoned at current use value at the exclusion of expected rise in value on account of future use. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015 and the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy 2007 attempt to remove many of these lacunae. But planned urban development is not being recognised as a public purpose for which powers of eminent domain could be used and in practical terms the proposed method of deciding compensation and rehabilitation package would make recourse to compulsory acquisition of land expensive for lands that also require substantial investment in trunk infrastructure. This would compel search for new paradigm in respect of urban land

VI. Summing Up

After reading this module we can understand that the shortage of land in urban areas and the problem posed by increasing demand on its use by many competitive activities require systematic planning management within the framework of well-defined urban land policy.Urban land problems are inherently complex and do not lend themselves to easy understanding .Despite many efforts India is still lacking a comprehensive urban land policy. A proper policy formulation requiresknowledge of the changing dynamics of urban growth and a careful analysis of the various forces that influence the land by different activities in certain areas.