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nly six municipalities used formal forecasting strategies to form expectations at the time it was decided to make more industrial land available. In this respect, none of the municipal interviewees used the land coefficient method. This should not come as a surprise since the land coefficient method is useful for generating long-term forecasts as economic cycles, which cause demand to fluctuate over time, are ignored (see e.g. Knoben & Traa, 2008). Even for this purpose the land coefficient method was hardly employed: three municipalities used models similar to the land coefficient method. The majority of municipalities that were interviewed indicate that their decisions to make more land available are informed by extrapolating previous sales rates onwards.

Another procedure to forecast demand that is mentioned uses inputs from firm consultations. Local economic affairs liaisons officers structurally monitor whether there are firms that want to move or expand in the near future. In some cases, this information is accompanied by waiting lists. A related method uses results from (local) firm surveys. Only one respondent did refer to the use of surveys. Municipalities thus seem to prefer more structural and less formal consultations of firms. This finding is consistent with previous work that has outlined the importance developers attach to maintaining personal contacts with other actors active in real estate markets (Charney, 2003, 2007; Adams et al., 2012). However, these studies have not explicitly addressed this issue in the context of expectation forming about future demand. Nonetheless, the number of municipal respondents that rely on informal contacts is relatively small compared to those that extrapolate recent sales rates. Finally, two interviewees said that decisions to develop new land were informed by the long-term

forecasts only.

The questionnaire results reveal that only one out of three municipalities make use of formal forecasting techniques when they decide to make more land available. More than half of the municipalities commence new development on the basis of their long-term forecasts of demand. In this respect, the questionnaire revealed that more than half of the municipalities did not make

long-term forecasts of demand for building land themselves. Instead they relied

on existing predictions made at a higher scale. Those predictions could come not only from the provinces, for adjacent municipalities might decide to cooperate in order to coordinate planning of industrial estates.27

27 Co-operation between neighbouring municipalities is facilitated by a special law, the ‘Joint provisions act’ (‘Wet gemeenschappelijke regelingen’ - Wgr). Some municipalities that were interviewed cooperate voluntarily under the regime of the Wgr, while others are obliged to cooperate by this law (municipalities in so-called plus-regions), for example by making a

2 UNDERSTANDING INDUSTRIAL LAND SUPPLY

The fact that both the interview and the questionnaire results show that the majority of municipalities does not make use of formal forecasting strategies when they decide to make more land available can be related to their aim to always have a reserve of serviced building land. This is referred to as an ‘iron reserve’: a buffer of already serviced building land. The underlying aim is to prevent shortages in the face of unexpected changes in sales rates. In fact, new additions to the stock of building land have to keep up with the amount of land that is sold or leased to interested parties: one hectare sold, one new hectare supplied. Indeed, between 1991 and 2007, the total amount of 16,750 hectares of building land that was made available, was almost equivalent to the amount of land that was sold or leased to interested parties, namely 16,600 hectares (Olden, 2010).

The interview evidence shows that decisions to make land available are based on the principle that the amount of land has to be sufficient to secure a steady supply of serviced building plots. In this regard, one of the respondents said that the amount of land held in stock should be about 40–50 hectares, taking into account an average annual sales rate of 7–9 hectares. Another said that the ‘iron reserve’ should be equivalent to four times the average sales rate. According to the literature, as a rule of thumb, the available stock of serviced land should be equivalent to two to five times the average amount of building plots sold per year (Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, 1999; Van Dinteren et al., 2007; Olden, 2010). One municipal interviewee explicitly stated that long-term demand projections are not made, because new development is adjusted to the current disposal levels. Another interviewee pointed out that the ambition of the municipality to maintain an ‘iron reserve’ had been thwarted because of constraints on industrial land supply within the municipal boundaries and long planning procedures.

Municipalities were also asked whether they adjusted their expectations of demand to the available supply of vacant land on existing (older) industrial estates. Since 2008, municipalities are obliged by the national government to make a better use of the existing stock of industrial land and property. This policy is based on a guideline put forward by the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) and referred to as the ‘SER-ladder’. This guideline stresses that new demand for industrial space should, where possible, be accommodated by redeveloping vacant property or by intensification of land use on existing industrial estates. Only if both options are inappropriate, can the demand for space be accommodated by developing new industrial estates. The majority of interviewees assume that only a small part of demand for industrial space can be absorbed by the existing stock. Therefore, these estimates hardly affect their decisions to make more land available by developing new industrial estates.

There are some notable exceptions. One respondent indicates that the municipal objective of absorbing 25% of demand for land on existing sites has been largely achieved due to a restricted availability of land on new industrial estates. In another municipality almost half of all demand for space could be accommodated by stimulating the take-up of vacant and unused land on existing estates. It should be noted that the potential supply on existing industrial estates also includes vacant properties that have been put on the market, due to closures, relocations or otherwise. Nonetheless, those interviewed said that they take into consideration only the amount of vacant land on existing industrial estates in their estimates. Within the questionnaire, nearly all municipalities (58) claim that they monitor potential supply in the existing stock of land. However, only 16 municipalities indicate that this information actually influences their estimates of demand for new industrial building land.

Finally, Dutch municipalities are often portrayed as being highly responsive to the amount of land supplied by neighbouring municipalities. Municipalities think that if they do not have a ready supply of industrial land, firms will go to surrounding municipalities (Van Oort et al., 2007; De Vor, 2011). De Vor (2011) has found that a 1% higher average annual growth rate of the available industrial land in neighbouring municipalities leads to a 0.66% higher average growth rate in the land available in the municipality. Although the presence of spatial interaction has been proved, the author states that it is unclear to what extent this may be attributed to the interjurisdictional competition. During the interviews, only one municipality said explicitly that the development rate in competing municipalities is taken into account in the decision to start new development.

In document Comparación de modelos físicos de un captador solar Fresnel (página 68-72)