Guidelines for municipal land allocations – An investigation of the application, availability and content

Abstract: The process of municipal land allocations is not regulated by law in Sweden with the result that Swedish municipalities has developed their own approaches of land allocation and choice of developer. In the absence of rulings and standardized municipal use has led to that especially developers considered the land allocation process to be unpredictable and not transparent. The 1st of January 2015 the law of guidelines for municipal land allocations took effect. The law states that municipalities who carry out land allocations should adopt guidelines whose content should specify each municipality’s procedure for land allocation. The purpose of the law is to create transparency, increased clarity and predictability to the initial part of the building process. Our study aims to give an overlook of how the 50 largest municipalities work with the guidelines acquired by law. The project studies the application, availability and the content of the guidelines for land allocations. The investigation shows that about 75 % of the 50 largest municipalities in Sweden have adopted guidelines for land allocation. About 60 % of the municipalities have the guidelines available on their website. Our study also shows a wide spread in content and details and that the information mediated to interested developers through the guidelines may be considered too general to be able to achieve the purpose of the law. Municipalities do not benefit from specified guidelines and the law itself opens up for general formulations and their own interpretations while there are no sanctions. We wonder whether the law simply was written to quiet the critics that have existed in the area.