Resumen de Daring land policies
Daring land policies in the field of housing spring from housing needs when special circumstances arise. They usually emerge when traditional approaches (e.g. build-to-sell schemes) fail to fulfil the universal need for housing in its amount, type, affordability or location. Land is a scarce resource and its uses must be combined to meet agricultural, industrial, residential and other needs. UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 regarding sustainable cities acknowledges that “many challenges exist to maintaining cities in a way that continues to create jobs and prosperity without straining land and resources.” This chapter highlights initiatives that address this difficult balance.Two projects in this section from the Basque Country seek to repurpose underdeveloped land originally conceived for other uses. This practice responds to an international trend of increasing population concentration in cities and their suburbs: the emptied Spain (España vaciada) is a concept born out of the massive internal migration to cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao. At regional level, the industrial conversion of the Basque region during the 1980s and 1990s resulted in large areas of unused industrial land, a difficult transition to a service economy and externalities such as unemployment and low wages. Therefore, initiatives that convert former industrial land into housing or use land for public services (dotacional) for time-limited accommodation purposes for specific groups tackle many issues: accommodating newcomers, repurposing wasted or unused land between cities, helping the creation of new households and supporting the socio-economic transformation of cities.The shortage of available land in specific urban areas and the lack of affordable housing are two elements shared by the remaining projects included in this chapter. Each one takes a somewhat different legal form that combines affordability and self-organised services for the community: community land trusts (land organisation structures where building and land ownership is separated and the community manages the land), the common law leasehold (developing affordable flats on top of community facilities) or participatory housing cooperatives.
