The findings of the analysis presented in this paper point to the need to rethink the social and economic implications of local land use planning. Actually, our analysis has revealed sufficient indicators that suggest that some approaches cannot fully explain the behaviour of local governments with respect to land use planning. Yet, further research is needed to understand why land planning is still a residual activity for local governments in Galicia.
The data presented and the considerations made in this paper call for an explanation that goes beyond the contributions traditionally made in Galicia.
Particularly, the most simple and plausible explanation for the low level of adoption of the LOUGA by local governments is that local governments have not found this act useful. In other words, the LOUGA did not solve any problems that were seen as actual problems by local governments. This explains why the municipalities with no land-use plans, i.e. the municipalities with the greatest difficulties in issuing permits because of long processing times, etc., correspond to the municipalities that were most willing to adopt the LOUGA. The adopters of
LOUGA have zoned, on average, more developable land than the rest of Galician municipalities, except the group of non-adopters. This shows that these municipalities wanted to growth, though it is not clear they wanted to increase the revenue sources or because they wanted to avoid conflicts –and the associated political costs with landowners if they had taken away more development rights.
The growth rate departs however from the population trend, for the municipalities that adopted the LOUGA lost on average around 13% of their population in the last decade, more than the municipalities that did not start the plan making or that are still working on it.
The municipalities that have not initiated the drafting of a land use plan adapted to the LOUGA already had a plan that is still in place and that was not obsolete in 2002, when the LOUGA was enacted. These plans zone a larger endowment of developable land than a plan in compliance with the LOUGA would probably zone. This is probably preventing these municipalities from adoption, due to the fiscal and social impact that adoption to LOUGA might have for the municipality. A large group of municipalities have some type of plan, either a general plan or a set of simple local land use planning regulations that allow them to manage the permits. The other large group of municipalities that do not have a land use plan does not need one because they do not manage permits or other types of land uses, for they are very isolated municipalities. This explains why clusters 1 and 2, the most urban groups, include only 6 municipalities with no use plans, whereas clusters 3, 4 and 5 include 62 municipalities without land-use plans. In addition, clusters 1, 2 and 3 include over 2/3 of the master plans of Galicia. This data cannot be explained with the current hypotheses about land planning in Galicia.
Most probably, the fourth land use act in the last three decades will be passed during the current term. Which factors should be considered when drafting the new act? If the goal is to achieve diffusion of the act, the most important issue is to convince local governments that land use planning is a useful tool that solves problems and has benefits, insofar as land use planning is a complex task that requires compensation (Alexander, Alterman and Law-Yone, 1983). On the other hand, enforcement mechanisms must not be forgotten. Paradoxically, for enforcement mechanisms to be effective, such mechanisms must be legitimated by the community (Tubío-Sánchez et al., 2013). Because the LOUGA has legitimated the duties of land use planning during a decade of implementation, the regional government should now be able to establish more dramatic enforcement mechanisms for the new act.
Still, the most important issue for the future is the need to ask ourselves, as Dalda Escudero (2009) did: What can land use planning be used for? What problems does land use planning solve? As claimed by Buitelaar et al. (2007), local land use planning requires much more action than the action envisaged in a plan that only allows or forbids some land uses. The effective planning of a municipality goes far beyond having approved a plan that is used exclusively to manage building or cultivation permits. Local land use plans must to a certain extent force local governments to ask themselves what goals they want to achieve with such permits. If the answer given by the new act is based exclusively on appearance and the main goal of the act is to fight uglinism, the next land use act will probably be as ignored as the LOUGA.
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Tables and figures
The different estates of municipalities with regard to LOUGA Number of municipalities
CMLUP-2002
Municipalities with land use planning based on the LOUGA that started implementing planning after enactment of the LOUGA.
31
Municipalities with land use planning based on the LOUGA that started implementing planning based on previous acts.
19
Municipalities that resorted to the 3rd transitional provision of
the LOUGA 24
Municipalities with suspended plans. 2
Municipalities currently working on a CMLUP-2002 221 Municipalities that did not have started the making of a
CMLUP-2002 19
Table 6: Number of municipalities and situation in relation to land use act 9/2002 (LOUGA)
Mean age of planning
policy tools (years) Previous planning policy tools *
LOUGA-adopters 15 35% SRLP
15% CMLUP 51% no plan Working on the
plan-making
10 50% SRLP
20% CMLUP 30% no plan Non-adopters
4 15% SRLP
63 % CMLUP 21% no plan Table 7: Age of planning policy tools in municipalities in 2002
*For municipalities that have not adapted to the LOUGA, the current land use planning policy tools are the same as in 2002.
Governing
Political Party Adopters (%) Non-adopters (%)
PP 48.4 52.6
PSdG 28.8 10.5
BNG-PSdG 3.2
-Other 3.2 5.3
Change of party 19.3 31.6
Table 8: Political parties governing during the terms 2003-2007 and 2007-2011
Figure 2: Mean of the variation of seats in the local elections of 2003 and 2007
Figure 3: Map of municipal clusters
Cluster No.
municipalities by cluster
LOUGA adopters by cluster by cluster (%)
Adopters with previous planning tools (%)
1 16 12.5 100
2 65 6.2 100
3 102 11.8 58
4 62 12.9 12
5 70 7.1 20
Table 9: Adopters of LOUGA by cluster and adopters with previous planning policy tools
Cluster No.
municipalities by cluster
Non-adopters (%) Non-adopters with previous planning tools (%)
1 16 -
-2 65 7.7 100
3 102 6.9 85%
4 62 3.2 100
5 70 7.1 60
Table 10: Percent municipalities by cluster that did not adapt to the LOUGA and percent municipalities with non-adapted land use planning that had previous planning policy tools
Type of planning policy tools No. of
municip alities
- No planning tool or DUGB 68
A SRMP before the LASGA 15
B CMLUP before the LASGA 4
C SRMP, LASGA between Act 7/1995 and Act 1/1997, or SRLP, LASGA until Act 7/1995
94
D CMLUP, LASGA until Act 7/1995 8
G CMLUP Act 1/1997, PXOM, 3rd transitional provision of the LOUGA
64
H RPRA, 3rd transitional provision of the LOUGA, or POMR Act 1/1997
9
K CMLUP LOUGA, not adapted to Act 2/2010 53
Table 11: Types of land use planning policy tool applicable in municipalities in April 2011
Figure 4: Increase of developable areas between 06-12 and percentage of seats by political party
Figure 5: Prices of rural land between 2008 and 2010.
Source: Land Bank of Galicia
Type of planning tool Property
tax rate No. of
dwellings built 1990-2001
Applications for new
development 2000 Population centres and designated places
No planning tool 0.48 247.4 9.11 1.2
SRMP before LASGA 0.49 364 24.4 1.5
CMLUP before the LASGA 0.60 681.5 25.5 1.5
SRMP 1985-1997 0.46 512.7 26.5 1.7
CMLUP 1985-1995 0.49 2873.2 85.1 2.5
CMLUP 1997, 3rd
Transitional Provision 0.46 1012.5 34.1 2
RPRA 0.46 72.7 2.4 1.3
CMLUP LOUGA 0.47 996.2 26.3 1.6
Table 12: Relationship between four variables (data of statistical medians) and type of planning
Number of non-adopters Number of municipalities working
on the plan-making Number of
adopters Currently
without a plan
Currently
with a plan Currently without a
plan Currently
with a plan LOUGA-Plan
Variation of population between 2001-2010>0
0 6 [21,2] 7 [11] 57 [10,2] 4 [13]
Variation of population between 2001-2010<0
3 [-16] 9 [-11] 57 [-14,8] 99 [-10,8] 27 [-13,5]
Total of
municipalities 3 15 64 156 31
Developable municipal area in their current plan (%)
0,027% 3,4% 1,9% 2,4% 2,6%
In conservative
municipalities 0,035 2,8 0,11 1,6 3,0
In progressive
municipalities - 5 0,94 3,8 2,6
Table 13: Number of municipalities into the three categories and in relation to variation of population, developable area in their plans and colour of political party
Figure 6: No. of amendments to plans adapted to the LOUGA by cluster
Figure 7: Relationship between variation of developable areas and increase of property tax revenue
Figure 8: Relationship between property tax revenue and seats of political parties