Several authors discuss the main actors found within the subdivision land development process (e.g. Inam et al., 2002; Miles et al. 2007; Carmona et al., 2010; Peiser and Hamilton, 2012) and they tend to differentiate by far-ranging but distinct participant classes: (1) entrepreneurs (developers, sponsors and owners); (2) landowners (owners or land speculators); (3) consultants or project team members (designers, financial and legal experts); (4) public officials (mayors, city council members, county commissioners); (5) city staff (planners, members of the public works, and building services departments); (6) community members (as consumers, citizens, and political constituents); and (7) lenders (funders and investors). The actors’ roles are discussed in the following sections. house builders to small local house builders and self-builders, and with levels of profit
motivation ranging from the most profit-driven private sector developers, through central and local government, to non-profit organisations, such as housing associations. Some developers specialize in particular market sectors such as retail, office, industrial or residential, while others operate across a range of markets (2010:275).
Carmona et al. highlight the diversity in skills and trade among the developers.
Whatever characterisation they are given, the developer is essential to initiating and moving forward the development process. Miles et al., among others, see the developers as akin to a movie producer:
in that they assemble the needed talents to accomplish their objectives and then assume responsibility for managing individuals to make sure that development potential is realized. They are proactive; they make things happen […] Thus, the cost of making a mistake is extraordinarily high (2007:8).
According to Segoe:
To the land developer the subdividing of land is primarily a matter of profit. He is chiefly interested in realizing as much money as he can from the sale of his land in the shortest possible time( (1941:495).
In the above quote, Segoe highlights this developer’s motivation as being one of
‘profit’: ‘realizing as much money as he can from the sale of his land in the shortest possible time’.
Developers influence peoples’ lives. The developer has a considerable responsibility as the communities and buildings he/she creates become the fabric of our civilisation. For example, in the boundaries of a subdivision plan that a developer creates, he/she affects the lives of those living and working in the city, as well as in multitude of other ways (Peiser and Hamilton, 2012).
The land subdivider, or subdivision developer, has been seen as ‘the practical city planner’, as ‘The actual working out of a city plan lies largely in the hands of the subdivider. He is creating the city of the future on the outskirts of the city of today’ as argued by the chairman of the California Real Estate Association (cited in Weiss, 2002:56).
This raises the question: if the developer is the ‘practical planner’ as Weiss suggests, what role does the planner play, if not planning?
Chapter Two: Conceptual Framework of Subdivision Control: Impacts on Residential Built Environment
In the United States, public officials and planners hold the power to stop development through the permitting of construction and in the approval and administration of land-use regulations. Nevertheless, it remains mostly developers who determine what actually gets built and when, what it looks like, and often where it is (Peiser, 1990:496).
Developers go so far as to lay out subdivisions’ street networks and the direct design of the public spaces between the housing units. Thus, it is developers working within the present political and economic institutions who plan America (Peiser, 1990). Coiacetto reiterates the same position, stating:
planners and other policy makers […] play but one role in the urban development process. Planners do not build cities and towns. Rather, they are built by private sector interests, developers in particular (2000:353).
The role that planners play is in developing regulations in line with wider public aspirations, the approval of project applications, and in the administration of the regulations, not directly involving themselves in the built environment’s designing and shaping activities.
2.2.3.2 Landowners
Landowners do not generally actively participate in the land subdivision development process. Developers purchase land from interim landowners – the ‘notorious’ land speculators (Schultz and Kelley, 1985:18). Owners simply release land for development when offered a sufficiently high price (Adams, 1994). Owners’ objectives are usually short-term and financially motivated (Carmona et al., 2010). In some cases, landowners might be influence by the outcome of the development process in different ways, such as: (1) releasing or not releasing land; (2) through the size and pattern of the land parcels released, which have a major impact on the subsequent pattern of development;
(3) through any conditions imposed on the subsequent nature of development; (4) through leasing rather than selling land; (5) or through joint ventures between a developer and a landowner (Miles et al., 2007; Carmona et al., 2010).
2.2.3.3 Consultants
The land development process is complex and dynamic, requiring many steps to complete. The majority of developers do not have the skills and knowledge required to complete each step on their own and typically outsource these steps to paid
professionals. Thus, most developers and their projects require input from a variety of advisers. Among the professionals paid to consult in these groups are marketing agents, estate agents, solicitors, planners, architects, urban designers, engineers, facility managers, site agents, quantity surveyors, cost consultants, etc. Consultants’ activities are significant proponents of a project, in that they bring in specialised expertise. Often a developer steers the project team during the development process (see Figure 2.1).
2.2.3.4 Public Officials and Planners
The public sector’s public officials represent a number of local institutions such as government bodies, regulatory agencies and planning authorities. Public officials also include fire and safety officials, members of school boards, parks and open space boards, environmental health officials, air quality officials, and so forth. The officials seek to regulate land development and use of land through implementing the land-use
Figure 2.1: Subdivision land development processes and participants’ roles Source: Peiser and Hamilton (2012)
Chapter Two: Conceptual Framework of Subdivision Control: Impacts on Residential Built Environment
regulations, provision of infrastructure and services, and involvement in land assembly and development. For example, the municipality city staff – including planners – must review and evaluate subdivision proposals, making recommendations and conditional requirements concerning subdivision improvements, approve project applications, as well as manage and control the process of land development (Schultz and Kelley, 1985;
Inam et al., 2002; Carmona et al., 2003; Ratcliffe et al., 2004; Miles et al., 2007).
According to Garvin, public officials can play a main role in fostering desirable interactions between proposed real-estate development and their neighbours (1986:27).
Peiser views planners as the policing agents of contemporary urban America (1990:496). They enforce rules such as the SR, regulate the development process, and penalise offenders. Developers can find the planning and approvals process a needless meddling in their work, and a general waste of their time and money. However, planners work to ensure that developers do not ignore regulations, in order to spend less time and money on the project, and are held responsible for improving the quality of urban life, beyond the limits of an individual project. The developers’ business model focuses only on the near future, and are value sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly only profit (Peiser, 1990:497). However, there are limits to what planners can reach through regulation. Dalton et al.’s study of local planning organizations in California demonstrates the weaknesses of regulation to implement plans (1989). They note that the responsive nature of the regulatory practice leaves the initiative for implementation in the hands of developers rather than planners.
2.2.3.5 Role of Citizens and Consumers
The land development process has a number of participants consisting of residents, businesses, and the general public. Each participant is a consumer of the development’s products, in that they buy into the business model. If the development is either a residential or commercial project, the participants directly and indirectly play a role in the economic success of the scheme. The most explicit instance of which is the purchase or rental of space, for either commercial or residential purposes. The purchases, particularly in their size and frequency, are indicative of the market demand (Kone, 2006; Dewberry and Rauenzahn, 2008; Johnson, 2008b; Carmona et al., 2010).
Ratcliffe et al. (2004) have identified three major participant groups in the development process. The most important is the ‘land user’ group. The land user includes future users as well as individual users who buy or rent the real-estate space to meet their housing
accommodation needs. The importance of final space users in the land development process is shown by Miles et al.; they identify the planning role of the developer in the following quote:
A description of participants in the development process would be incomplete without mentioning the final users of the space: the direct consumers of the finished product.
Developers anticipate users' needs when articulating the original project concept. The market study further elaborates on the idea and guides developers in developing products that fit their intended market(s). Ultimately, the final users determine the success of the project by accepting or rejecting the finished product as it is delivered to the marketplace. Users often contract for space before construction begins (preleasing).
By working with the developer's marketing representative, final users can make sure that the finished product meets their needs and, in doing so, become active participants in the development process (2007:61).
It is the final user consumption of the new product which determines whether the development has been successful. The development’s success is largely determined not by likely or other value-laden judgements but by the exchange of money to meet the profit-making goals of the development.
Lynch and Hack describe the space consumer and what must be considered in serving consumer demands:
Making places that fit human purposes is the task of site planning. Two things must then be understood: the nature of the site, on the one hand, and how its users will act in it and value it, on the other. By ‘users’ we mean all those who interact with the place in any way: live in it, work in it, pass through it, repair it control it, profit from it suffer from it, even dream about it (1984:61).
The actions and values of the consumer are a key consideration in the planning of developments. Kone (2006) indicates that buyers today are more sophisticated about aspects involving and related to land development, in that they are often seeking high-quality development, not just housing. Given this growing awareness of the real-estate market in particular, developers are pushed to create communities that support consumers’ needs and lifestyles in order to continue meeting market demands, and therefore profit-making goals.
Subdivisional land development is not merely aimed at fulfilling market demands because there are allies and opponents as well to development outright. There are
Chapter Two: Conceptual Framework of Subdivision Control: Impacts on Residential Built Environment
citizens who actively support or oppose land subdivision and development by political means, and represent public view. These two groups – supporters and opponents – are often the same because their roles are often conflated. The citizens’ efforts may actively affect the development process; for instance, through protests over specific development projects, participation or consultation on particular projects, and/or involvement in interest groups and organisations. Through the democratic process, they – indirectly, and perhaps in principle only – control the public-sector side of the development process (Inam et al., 2002; Carmona et al., 2003).
2.2.3.6 Lenders
Unless developers use their own capital, they typically make financial arrangements on the most favourable terms available, with regard to cost and flexibility (Carmona et al., 2010). In North America, there are a number of institutions financing various phases of the development process. Insurance companies, commercial banks, and mortgage companies are among them. The institutions funding the initiatives tend to be much larger than the clients they serve. Typically, institutional lenders make loans at every stage of the process, for such purposes as land acquisition, land subdivision improvements, home construction, and the purchase of the finished product (Schultz and Kelley, 1985:24–25). The lenders at these institutions, investing resources in urban development, do so for their own profit-making purposes. If acceptable profits are not achieved, they will invest elsewhere (Kone, 2006; Carmona et al., 2010).