Limitaciones y fortalezas

The hypothesis on the presence of an Anglo Saxon Western wind in the domain of urban area development is being tested by professional literature reviews. The main reason behind shifting positions of the public and private sector is the phenomenon of complexity. During the past decade in the Netherlands, parties involved with urban area development projects are faced with changes in the way urban land use plans are made and decisions relating to them are reached. Changes which various authors (Van Loon, 1998; Teisman, 1998; Wigmans, 1998) in the field in of decision-making in urban area development processes relate to more structural societal changes, which are connected to an increasing complexity of societal decision-making and an enlargement of the social and economic dynamics in our highly-developed society Because of ideological, cultural and financial reasons there is less space for hierarchical management and more space for condition creating network management. As we are not primarily interested in the reasons behind the phenomenon of complexity in this research we now move to effects of it urban area development practice.

The above described changes result in a decreasing manageability of urban area development processes which leads to a change in the role and strategic conduct of the parties involved. On this matter we can speak of the rise of the development planning,

which forms an active counterpart of the classical ‘traditional approach’ of urban development which is characterised by a sequentiality of public and private conduct. In development planning there is an early and intensive collaboration between local authorities and the private sector about the content and process of an urban area development (Van Loon c.s., 2008). Urban area development is the practical application of this development planning; it combines urban planning with spatial investments and thus reinforces the implementation of urban planning (De Zeeuw, 2007). On a national scale the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment published a directive policy document called the Nota Ruimte (2006) which contains recommendations for applying development planning in practice through urban area development. Important recommendations include more influence and mandatory of local public authorities and less central government interruptions. Recently, another study on the position of public and private parties and management of urban area development processes conducted by the parliamentarian Commission ‘Fundamentele Verkenning Bouw (2008) concluded that now it is time for the private sector to manage urban area developments more frequently and in an integral way. Thus, we can distinguish a power shift from national to local public authorities and a shift from local public authorities to the private sector in a relatively short period of time.

The main reason behind the request from the commission is the wish for a ‘faster and smarter’ urban area development process. If we put this request in another way, there is a rising discomfort about current collaboration models, and especially the Public Private Partnerships like the ‘joint venture model’. As Van de Klundert (2008) puts it, ‘Public Private Partnerships represented and reflected a certain period in time, but now we are in a planning culture that is in transition.’ We are facing new approaches on collaboration and management of urban area development. The time that both public and private parties worked together on designing and realising plans for an urban area – in a legal organisational body sharing responsibilities and competencies with the intention to spread financial risks on the investments and spreading revenues on land development and real estate exploitation – is subject to change. As a practical result we now face a period of an experimental kind. The Commission recommended that the urban area development domain should search for alternative instruments for collaboration. One collaboration model in specific was mentioned, the concession model. A definition of the concession model, as described by Habiforum (in Deloitte, 2008), is as follows:

A land development concession is an instrument which enables public parties to enter into an agreement with a private party or a consortium of (private) parties to (re)develop, construct and maintain an area. On the basis of an agreed spatial development plan the private parties are held responsible for the quality, construction and maintenance of the area for a limited period (20-30 years).

This still doesn’t reflect the characteristics of the concession, for this research however it will be necessary to be very clear about the definition. The first ‘real concession’ in terms of the definition above will probably be applied to the urban area project Ooijen Wansum, which will be recommended by the actors involved as the real life experiment asked for by the commission Dekker. This still has to be approved by the Dutch government, but a study by Twynstra Gudde (2008) on the juridical and legislative possibilities points out that there are indications for a serious experiment with the new

collaboration model. For example, this report concluded with an optional intention agreement between the public and private parties, within the constraints of present Dutch laws. In recent practice, private developers together with local authorities already initiated ‘concession like’ projects on several occasions. Mortiere Middelburg, Oud Ijmuiden, Ooijen-Wansum are some of the practical examples of ‘concession like’ models in the Netherlands from past years. These cases will be subject to analysis further on in the research, in order to learn from these early examples of variants on the concession model and start at as appropriate.

3

Research Methodology

The research design can be subdivided into five parts as visually summarised in figure 2. For each part we will discuss the main content, considerations and limitations of the research methodology.

Figure 2. Research Design

Part A and B of the research design are carried out in order to test and under scribe the hypothesis of an increasing influence of Anglo Saxon concepts in Dutch society and an increasing influence of the private sector in urban area development. The methodology consists of literature studies and interviews. Relevant changes on a societal level are supported by academic literature, and changes on a practical level are supported by findings from professional literature, interviews with professionals, and some current empirical project examples. There have been considerations if it would be necessary to analyse Anglo Saxon influences outside the domain of urban area development. But, considered the political and socio-economic context of which urban area development is a part, this might result in the social and probably academic irrelevance of the research. The Dutch urban area development equivalent of the Anglo Saxon approach is considered to be the concession model, as it is already being adopted in both the academic and professional literature and jargon. Before we continue to part C of the

research therefore we have to make our own clear definition of the concession model in order to select cases that answer the characteristics of the concession model.

Part C of the research design is the analysis of effects and characteristics from an Anglo Saxon ‘concession like’ approach on the values of a number of variables in urban area development projects abroad. The methodology consists of case based research, carried out in particular selected urban projects in the United Kingdom and United States of America. In specific, involved public and private actors are interviewed, documents are analysed, and practical results are measured in order to learn lessons about the possibilities and difficulties of the Anglo Saxon approach in a foreign context. There have been considerations on selecting other countries surrounding the Netherlands, most particularly France and Germany, in order to learn lessons from their approaches on possible Anglo Saxon influences on urban area development. However, this is not directly of assistance to the research objective. We are looking for effects and consequences of purely Anglo Saxon approaches in their native context in the first place and further on will analyse Anglo Saxon approaches in cases within the Dutch Rhineland context. There is a preference for an in dept research, so we limit ourselves to the UK and USA for conducting case studies. Furthermore, we are aware that choices have to be made on the criteria for selecting cases, on the selection of variables, and the way to measure them, as well as difficulties to cope with context dependent circumstances.

Part D is about the lessons learned from recent Dutch ‘concession like’ developments in order to analyse possibilities and difficulties in the domestic context. Methodology includes case studies and interviews. After part B and C is completed it will be possible to determine whether or not a specific Dutch case can be considered a concession, on basis of both the definition of the concession model and the additional characteristics found in cases abroad. For the definition of the concession model the scope, scale, and nature of the urban project itself is considered to be of importance. Here, opinions from interviewed professionals will support the description of possibilities and difficulties. Part E builds upon the conclusions of part C and D and will ultimately result in an integral design for the implication and application of the concession model for urban area development practice and theory in the Netherlands. The methodology here consists of ex ante evaluation. How exactly this final part of the research will look like is not clear at this moment, but the intention is that there will be given fundamental thought on the possibilities and difficulties of applying a concession model within the framework of legislative, juridical, and organisational context in the Netherlands. However the main focus of the research will be the integral design of the concession instrument itself as an adequate variant of collaboration models for urban area development. In a broader sense this integral advice and design has to contribute to the repositioning of the management of urban area development.

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Findings and Discussion

Both from the academic as well as the professional literature review we can conclude that there is an Anglo Saxon wind in both Dutch society and urban area development. Most profoundly to be mentioned is the increasing interest in the concession model as a

possible future variant on current collaboration models in urban area development. Though we may notice a different approach in the years to come – evidently since the Second World War the Netherlands have faced an alternate power shift between public and private sector – at the moment our hypothesis is confirmed.

To refine these literature findings 8 professionals from urban area development practice have been interviewed during the summer of 2008 by the PhD candidate. Objective of this method was to test the hypothesis with an open interview technique. On the one hand, all professionals under scribed the increased influence of the private sector in urban area development. On the other hand, the majority of the interviewed professionals indicated that the assumption that urban area development is becoming more individual and in equal is not that relevant for this particular research, it even is not that obvious, it is a concern of all times. For that the interdependencies between parties are to strong. Urban areas are hard to develop without interests and means form all parties. Relationships and agreements are made with the objective to create an added value. Not one party can claim dominance in urban area development; all parties have different instruments to manage the outcome of it. Here we arrive at the main issue discussed with the professionals. Parties involved in urban area projects have troubles defining their actual role. Who is in charge and under what circumstances and conditions, and on which matters is one judged, and with what instruments? Both public and private professionals addressed the concession model as an instrument for collaboration between public and private parties with potential to solve this problem.

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Conclusion and Further Research

We started this research with a conceptual framework about changes in urban area development. The most important findings of the research so far include the confirmation of a current Anglo Saxon Western wind in Dutch society, as is mentioned in socio-economic and corporate academic literature. Furthermore, professional literature, opinions of professionals, and the current professional interest and pioneering in urban projects with the concession model indicates that private parties have an increased influence in urban area development. For this research it means that the ultimate integral design of the concession model has to answer current problems on management of urban area development, especially on responsibilities, tasks, competencies of parties. For this we need to analyse the Anglo Saxon approaches of actors abroad, in order to translate these approaches to our own specific Dutch context. Next step in this research is to describe what the characteristics of the concession model are in order to select cases on the basis of this definition. In these cases attention is paid to the effects of the approach on several variables of urban area development including; management, costs and revenues, procedures, contracts and agreements, instruments, spatial qualities, scheduling and planning, and so on. Both qualitative and quantitative variables have to be measured using a predefined scale. We conclude with the contribution and relevance of this research. In Dutch urban area development practice this research has potential to provide a handhold for managing urban area development in the shape of a new collaboration model in addition to current used models. For the academic field this research is a clear example of applied research in urban area

development, it tackles socio-economic issues on an operational level. It aims at finding a solution for managerial problems in this particular field of expertise on the basis of an integral approach instead of the (existing) domain specific