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The main goal of this article consists in the proposal of a developer obligations’ instrument aimed at capturing land betterments that result from planning decisions and from the implementation of territorial plans, reassigning them to public infrastructure, equipment and social purposes. It consists in charging for extra development rights beyond average municipal urban built-up areas. It is founded on a research and consultancy work for the Portuguese Territory Department (a governmental organism) within the scope of the revision of the Land Planning Act and complementary legislation, namely the new Juridical Regime of Urbanization and Edification, and the new Juridical Regime of Territorial Management Instruments. Thus herein are presented the assumptions, methodology, outcomes and conclusions of this work. It is applied − as a case study − to the Detail Plan of Avenue Pope John XXIII, in Fátima (in the Municipality of Ourém, Portugal), but its application is generalizable to other municipalities, and it potentially strengthens their financial status. Considering the current widespread crisis, and taking advantage from the experience of homologous value capture instruments in other countries, the proposed instrument is intended to contribute to strengthen municipal finance. It faces more clearly and objectively the funding of territorial planning and urban development. It further aims at developing understandable, quantifiable and user-friendly decision-support instruments, and at reassigning the betterments engendered by public planning decisions on behalf of communities. This concept and methodology supports the consolidation of the objectives of the new Portuguese Land and Planning Act. It indeed fosters the integration of territorial policies, strengthens effectiveness in plan execution, supports the economic and financial sustainability of urban development operations, and promotes equity as well as social and territorial cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Contribution to the debate towards international comparative research on developer obligations. • Development of an innovative concept and methodology for value capture and its application. • Endowment of Municipalities with financing efficient instruments to cover municipal costs and social goals. • Proposal and explanation of a methodology to compute betterments engendered by territorial plans. • Provision of technical studies as a prerequisite for the approval of territorial plans. This article presents the results of a research project on the design of a particular value capture instrument in the form of a development obligation. This has been modelled to capture part of the betterment engendered by tourism-oriented plans. The article subsequently explores the potential of applying this levy in the interest of social goals, thus complementing traditional municipal funding sources. The concept is applied to the Urban Zoning Plan of the Planning Unit 11 of the municipality of Lagoa, located in the Algarve, Portugal. It tries to overcome several gaps and contradictions identified in the literature and in the planning practices of different value capture instruments in diversified urban contexts. These shortcomings refer to: (i) uncertainties as to why the land value rises; (ii) undefined thresholds between betterment and profit; (iii) the classification of value capture whether as a tax or as an instrument of wealth redistribution; (iv) the application of the captured value; (v) dilemmas between private property rights and citizens' rights over betterments due to public decisions; (vi) public regulation versus free market operation; (vii) responsibilities, benefits and obligations of private individuals in urban development; and (viii) the design, execution as well as the risks of capture instruments. This adds to the specific requirements enforced by the Portuguese Land Act regarding the economic and financial sustainability of urban development. This instrument is based on objective, reliable, and comparable data. This data is organised into a management information system which supports a flexible and continually updatable model to assess betterments engendered by public decisions. This model is easily generalizable to other urban contexts. Finally, the potential of the proposed instrument to achieve social goals is assessed against the background of factors such as the fiscal challenges currently faced by municipalities, the rising importance of increasingly diversified stakeholders and their awareness of issues of sustainability in urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this article is to develop a methodology of cartographic analysis to support municipal decisions concerning attraction, location, and distribution of immigrants in metropolitan areas, ensuring respective integration. This innovative methodology is aimed at identifying settlement patterns (and their respective intensities) adopted by specific groups of immigrants according to territorial characteristics (i.e., concentration, sprawl, and dispersion) and the immigrants' own ethnic features, in relation to correspondent patterns of the whole population. It is applied as a case study to the Porto Metropolitan Area (Portugal). This paper discusses sociological reasons for the concentrated or dispersed behaviors shown by different ethnic groups and how the behaviors shape the morphological and typological characteristics of the immigrant settlements. The application of this methodology to different urban realities makes it possible to (1) monitor the evolution of indicators concerning immigrants and metropolitan territorial characteristics; (2) analyze and compare settlement behaviors exhibited by different ethnic groups in relation to the correspondent behaviors of the native population; (3) critically inspect the evolution of the integration of different ethnic groups; and (4) define and apply urban policies aimed at attracting, distributing, and locating immigrants in the metropolitan areas, simultaneously ensuring socioeconomic territorial sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article stresses the importance of urban planning interventions on real estate office markets in an environment increasingly characterized by globalization processes and progress of information and communication technologies, leaving behind the traditional influence of more market-related variables spread abroad vast literature. It contends that a better indirect control exerted by municipal authorities may launch the performance and characteristics of these markets. Within this scope, an innovative methodology and model are proposed, aimed at assisting municipal decisions in the definition of strategic policies concerning location or relocation of offices, and respective influences over rents. This methodology and this model have a flexible ongoing character that fits the anytime concrete features of local office markets. They are applied, as a case study, to the office market of Oporto city (Portugal). Implications for urban policy are inferred and generalized from this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article proposes an innovative methodology to compute economic rents of land designed to current or potential offices uses. It consists in the establishment of a cause-and-effect relation between offices’ price levels and correspondent levels of land rent, considering the main factors that influence property prices, the ones that guide public and private activities’ location decisions and the inter-dependencies between land and real estate property markets. The rationale subjacent to this research is that land economic rent is determined by the difference between offices market price and a set of costs correspondent to land acquisition, planning and building processes, and a profit margin. An assessment of surplus values is provided in order to compute it as the difference between total land market value (land economic rent plus economic return on land use) and correspondent tributary patrimonial-value according to legal valuation proceedings (settled on property law). In order to reach these goals, variables that exert influence on urban planning and municipal management were identified, an urban management information system was designed and implemented, and an integrated and interactive model to support decisions in urban planning – concerning real estate offices and land prices and characteristics – was developed. These tools were applied as a case study to Oporto city (Portugal). They embody updating functionalities, setting up as an on-going support to policies of municipal land use management (particularly applied to offices uses). A proposal is made to integrate similar models in territorial plans as valuation tools to support better approaches to assess the impact of planning decisions on real estate and land values, thus informing a more equitable, efficient and local-based tax basis. Implications of this analysis for urban planning and fiscal settings are proposed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]