Vacant urban land: Exploring ownership strategies and actions

Although the redevelopment of vacant land, especially for housing, has become an increasingly important component of British planning policy, urban land ownership has been downgraded as a policy issue because of its inherent complexity and potential for controversy. On the basis of research into the strategies and actions of 155 owners of vacant urban land or obsolete urban property within 80 substantial redevelopment sites, this paper reinterprets earlier notions of active and passive owner behaviour in urban redevelopment. The results suggest that brownfield redevelopment could be accelerated by a more fine-grained and participatory approach to urban land policy. This should aim to take advantage of the desire of most owners to promote redevelopment (or at least not to stand in its way) while encouraging the transfer of land away from the minority of owners who are hostile to redevelopment efforts.