Abstract

The issue of land and its ownership remains under-explored in relation to the housing affordability crisis. We argue that the concentrated ownership of residential land affects housing production in Luxembourg through the interplay of landowner and developer wealth accumulation strategies. Drawing on expert interviews, we first show that the country’s growth-centred ecology has produced a negotiated planning regime that does little to manage the pace of residential development. Through an investigation of the development of 71 large-scale residential projects since 2007, we then identify the private land-based wealth accumulation strategies this facilitative planning regime enables. This analysis of land registry data identifies land hoarding, land banking and the strategic use of the planning system. The Luxembourg case – with its extremes of land concentration, low taxes and public disengagement from land – provides a glimpse at the influence of landowner and property developer strategies on housing affordability free of the usual mediating impact of the planning system.

摘要

与住房负担能力危机相关的土地及其所有权问题仍未得到充分探索。我们认为，住宅用地的集中所有权通过土地所有者和开发商财富积累策略的相互作用影响了卢森堡的住房生产。通过专家访谈，我们首先表明，该国以增长为中心的生态已经产生了一个协商的规划制度，对管理住宅发展的步伐几乎没有作用。通过对自 2007 年以来 71 个大型住宅项目的开发调查，我们确定了这种促进性规划制度所支持的私人土地财富积累策略。对土地登记数据的分析确定了土地囤积、土地储备和规划系统的战略使用。