PAPERS FROM PRACTICE High Development Land Prices and the Realities of Urban Property Markets

Introduction The current debate about high development land prices should end with a solution 10 a problem that has dogged this country since the introduction of ronnal planning in the J 96Os. Then, as now, the spectacular transfer of wealth to panicular landowners on foot of planning decisions generated a sense of injustice about a system that was supposed to work in the interests of Ihe state as a whole. Most people have an instinctive feeling that any law causing the transference of vast wealth for little or no effon or input by the rec ipient is simply and plainly wrong. This paper is intended as a contribution to thi s debate. It draws on the residual land price theory and sees high development land prices as an unintended effect of our planning system and not a cause of high property prices.