To sell or to build: this is the dilemma!

Followed comes a summary of reports and forecasts on recent and future shifts in land prices in Sweden. The text is mainly a translation of the article by Jonas Lindmark Morningstar, specialist at Morningstar. The most appealing point in the article to me was that it reflects best the most dominant approaches in Swedish spatial planning procedures: strict governmental regulation and control over construction rules, sustainable planning and participatory planning. The three aforementioned concepts are evident through importance and strong impacts of legislation, environmental measures and residents’ opinions on predominant planning routines:

New planning regulations (proposition 2009/10:170) will come into force in Sweden in two months from now. One possible effect is an increase in provision of plots for villa construction which will in turn decrease land prices.

Normally, an increase in prices results in an increase in supply. In the case of land lots, however, a different rule governs: supply of land for villa construction in Sweden has fallen 30 percent in 2010 compared with 2008 while there is evidently a high demand. The number of constructed villas in recent two decades has nevertheless decreased to one third compared with the same time period before 1990.

The reason why municipalities are not that willing to assign land for villa are numerous and not without ambiguities: current regulations have made housing development a less profitable and more risky occupation; more strict environmental measures are being taken by authorities; more objections are made to construction permits by neighbors; many land owners hesitate to sell their lots in hope of higher prices – which is in fact a reliable forecast. Even the monthly rent earned after construction is not a sufficiently tempting motive for land owners to construct since land prices increase in a much higher pace than prices of the houses do.

The new planning and construction regulations aim at simplifying and speeding up the process of land assignment for villa construction. Nevertheless, interest rates in Sweden are currently so low that an access in land assignment for villa construction does not necessarily entail an immediate fall in land prices.

Experts from Building Administration (Boverket) and other responsible organizations believe that current situation will be followed by an increase in interest rates and the trend will persist until house prices are reduced down to construction costs. At the time land prices will start falling in a rapid pace just as they had been increasing previously.

Source: http://www.byggahus.se/artiklar/ar-din-tomt-vard-mer-huset

Optimal Web-based Visualization Tool

The following is an abstract of my thesis report titled as Towards an Optimal Web-based Visualization Tool; A Comparative Analytical Survey over Visualization Techniques for Enhancing Stakeholders’ Participation in Planning:

Use of digital visualization tools in planning is nowadays widely practiced around the world by various contributors to the field and in different planning scales. Visualization facilitates perception of underlying thoughts and objectives of planning alternatives and consequently assists with communication of the plan to stakeholders of different groups. This – in turn - enables them to actively and efficiently participate in the procedure from the very initial stages to the implementation phase thanks to the insight provided by user-friendly visualization tools.

Available visualization tools for planning, however, are either not integrated and efficient enough or too resource- or expertise-demanding and thus not entirely fulfilling the qualities mentioned above. This study is a search for a conceptual framework for the optimal web-based visualization tool. Web-basedness diminishes temporal and spatial distance among the users and planning agents and provides the possibility for more participation in and interaction with planning projects.

Within this study, major characteristics of an optimal tool have been investigated through literature and online resources, contacts with experts and practitioners, a survey over existing products and visual analysis of the outcomes. An evaluation cube was initially developed and then used as the basis for a set of duality criteria. A selection of visualization tools were examined against those criteria and results were demonstrated visually. Eventually, findings were used to provide a backcasted example of the optimal tool and suggestions were made for actual development of the package to be used by planning agents.