Environmental rating tools and residential land development in Australia

Numerous environmental rating tools have developed around the world over the past decade or so, in an attempt to increase awareness of the impact buildings have on the environment. Whilst many of these tools can be applied across a variety of building types, the majority focus mainly on the commercial building sector. Only recently have some of the better known environmental rating tools become adaptable to the land development sector, where arguably the most visible environmental impacts are made. EnviroDevelopment is one such tool that enables rating of residential land development in Australia. This paper seeks to quantify the environmental benefits achieved by the environmental rating tool EnviroDevelopment, using data from its certified residential projects across Australia. This research will identify the environmental gains achieved in the residential land development sector that can be attributed to developers aspiring to gain certification under this rating tool.

Environmental rating tools and residential land development in Australia

EnviroDevelopment National Board of Management board member, Lyndall Bryant, has recently conducted research into environmental rating tools and how their environmental benefits within residential land developments can be quantified.

Inclusive development? State-led land development model in New Town, Kolkata

Urban land development in India is changing under the auspices of economic liberalisation. Kolkata has been in the forefront of this transformation through development of new townships in the urban peripheries based on a distinctive state-led land development model. Within this context New Town, Kolkata (also known as Rajarhat) provides a highly illuminative case to articulate the ways in which the state is implementing its neoliberal agenda in land development. It rides on political and ideological high ground by seeking to create a ‘model development’ of state–market partnership for dual goals of fostering capitalist interest while fulfilling welfarist principles. Interesting insights have emerged that point to a policy paradox. On one hand, the process follows market principles of efficacy and efficiency; on the other hand, state’s keenness to extend control persists, thereby creating a highly uneven terrain for state–market interaction. New Town reflects a typical quasi-market condition shaped by the monopolistic state, the poorly structured role of the private sector, an absence of civic bodies, and minimal land and housing provision for the poor. In India, as internationally, the economic liberalisation market ideology is increasingly construed as good governance. In this context New Town is a step in the right direction, but the progress is patchy, uneven, and still evolving.

Taking as Giving, Appropriation as Access: Transfers of Land Development Rights and China’s Recent Experiments

Economic development at both the domestic and global levels is associated with increasing tensions which are inextricably linked to the meaning and allocation of property rights, which has a great impact on appropriation of resources and may lead to different paths of development. “Taking”-- the appropriation of private land for public needs -- is a typical example that exhibits those tensions, posing a challenge to the conventional conception of property as individualistic and exclusive rights of possession, use, and disposition and to the associated neoliberal model of development. Should the individual landowner be left to bear the cost of a regulatory intervention which endures to the wider benefit of the whole community? How to mitigate the tensions between private ownership and public regulation? If we take the liberal concept of property, then private property seems to be in constant conflict with public interests and wider social concerns. Meanwhile, community, situating between the state and the individuals, and community’s relationship to development rights, have not provoked enough discussion. The paper explores the different ways land development rights might be seen both in Western, essentially common law systems, and in China, especially now and in view of two case studies. An empirical example in Wugang, China reveals the importance of integrating the “community lens” proposed by Roger Cotterrell into studies of the transfer of land development rights. Reading through the community lens, taking could be giving and appropriation could also be access. This approach provides a new perspective to re-evaluate the relationship between legal appropriation and development.

Bericht der Palestine Land Development Company Ltd.

Otto Warburg

The Palestine Land Development Company Limited

H. Neumann

Forest Hills Gardens : the suburban land development of the Russell Sage Foundation.

Mode of access: Internet.

City residential land development : studies in planning : competitive plans for subdividing a typical quarter section of land in the outskirts of Chicago /

[Arthur C. Comey awarded 2d prize.]

Industrial land development and manufacturing deconcentration in Greater Jakarta

Industrial land development has become a key feature of urbanization in Greater Jakarta, one of the largest metropolitan areas in Southeast Asia. Following Suharto’s marketoriented policy measures in the late 1980s, private developers have dominated the land development projects in Greater Jakarta. The article investigates the extent to which these private industrial centers have effectively reduced the domination of Jakarta in shaping the entire metropolitan structure. The analysis indicates that major suburban industrial centers have captured most of the manufacturing employment that has dispersed from Jakarta. The industrial centers have now increasingly specialized and diversified. It is likely that a polycentric metropolitan structure will emerge in the future.

Development priority zoning (DPZ)-led scenario simulation for regional land use change : the case of Suichang County, China

China has experienced an extraordinary level of economic development since the 1990s, following excessive competition between different regions. This has resulted in many resource and environmental problems. Land resources, for example, are either abused or wasted in many regions. The strategy of development priority zoning (DPZ), proposed by the Chinese National 11th Five-Year Plan, provides an opportunity to solve these problems by coordinating regional development and protection. In line with the rational utilization of land, it is proposed that the DPZ strategy should be integrated with regional land use policy. As there has been little research to date on this issue, this paper introduces a system dynamic (SD) model for assessing land use change in China led by the DPZ strategy. Land use is characterized by the prioritization of land development, land utilization, land harness and land protection (D-U-H-P). By using the Delphi method, a corresponding suitable prioritization of D-U-H-P for the four types of DPZ, including optimized development zones (ODZ), key development zones (KDZ), restricted development zones (RDZ), and forbidden development zones (FDZ) are identified. Suichang County is used as a case study in which to conduct the simulation of land use change under the RDZ strategy. The findings enable a conceptualization to be made of DPZ-led land use change and the identification of further implications for land use planning generally. The SD model also provides a potential tool for local government to combine DPZ strategy at the national level with land use planning at the local level.