Digital planning tools for more efficient land development

Research Project, 2018 – 2019

Economic analysis is essential for successful implementation of any urban development project, not least since such projects in Sweden most often are driven by public tax money. However, it can be argued that the current Swedish planning system deflects planning practice from proper economic treatment. The background is the fact that all property values are based on two things, land value an improvement of land (often in the form of buildings). However, current planning procedure where the development plan, typically covering limited areas of development, is the decisive and legal tool to initiate new development projects, has very limited geographical extension. This means in practice that land improvements, such as buildings and individual public spaces, is what such plans primarily deal with, which also means that economic calculations most often are limited to the value of such improvements. Changes in land value, on the other hand, are most often left out, since these typically are related to large scale investments of infrastructure not contained in the development plan. Hence, economic calculations on new development projects are today heavily biased towards individual property development projects while the collective values of land development are neglected. The revolution in digitalised data however, open for new digital planning tools that can relate individual property projects to the broader issues of land development, as a basis for more apposite economic calculation of such projects. The project is a pilot running from summer 2018 to summer 2019, initiated by Framtiden AB, a large housing company owned by the City of Gothenburg, with the aim to clear the ground for more extensive research on the topic.