Abstract
It is a planners’ common argument that one of the main sources of vacant land is developers’ speculation. Consequently, in order to reduce vacant land, it is also a common policy to charge extra taxes to this kind of lots as a way to force development. Using a rich data base from Santiago, Chile, this paper investigates on the determinants of urban vacant land. We find that amongst the most important elements driving unused sites in Santiago are public regulations. Hence, practitioners must be aware about this issue before implement a policy to reduce vacant land because it could have the opposite result.
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Notes
In his article Schenk also proposed a third spring of vacant land: the optimal harvest time, notwithstanding, as in this same paper is pointed out, that explanation has a limited applicability.
The sources of this information are basically the Municipality of Santiago and the Santiago Intendancy, which keep a complete record of every site’s characteristics.
Larangeira (2004) shows that the percentage of sites that correspond to vacant land in Quito (Ecuador) is 21.7%, in Guadalajara (México) is 26.6%, in Buenos Aires (Argentina) is 32%, in Guayaquil (Ecuador) is 39.4% and in Río de Janeiro (Brazil) is 44%.
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Morandé, F., Petermann, A. & Vargas, M. Determinants of Urban Vacant Land. J Real Estate Finan Econ 40, 188–202 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11146-008-9123-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11146-008-9123-5