Abstract submission

Rebecca Leshinsky, Terje Holsen, and Fabian Thiel

Valuation of land has a long history, nuanced to nation states and legal traditions. Given global challenges from climate change, including floods, landslides and fires; increased tenure in multi-unit living with international ownership; defects in high rise buildings; wars; artificial intelligence; and the global real estate trend; it is timely to discuss issues and factors that must be included in processes and methodologies for the valuation of land as current perils impact on more than nations and individual citizens.

The special session will be a “discussion circle” to raise new ideas for valuation on existing foundations. It will commence with a case study presentation exploring “social value” in buildings with flammable cladding and the defects building crisis affecting the United Kingdom.

From there, participants (up to 8) will present for 10-15 minutes. Then, a panel of two established scholars, will spark insightful and important critical discussion on the themes raised. The audience will also be invited to participate. Participant papers will be from emerging research or more established work. Fresh themes for land valuation will be discussed, with an emphasis on reciprocal learnings for comparative jurisdictions. Traditional valuation themes must be covered: standards, methodologies, transparency, as well as legal issues, but all from a socio-legal lens. Some presenters may wish to raise emerging concerns in valuation consequent of current events, including natural disasters, climate change, and conflicts. A further trend is the internationalisation of the property market, especially the ownership of condominium. This attracts a variety of global taxation and legal issues and pushes the valuation profession into the global arena where the modern property professional requires international skills, expertise and experience.

This special session transcends national laws and established land valuation processes, such as the International Valuation Standards and methodologies, as there is no longer a one size fits all model. It is timely to consider how valuation can be better accommodated in a global world. PLPR, as an international forum that attracts global academics, practitioners and government officials, is an excellent sounding ground for new and innovative knowledge and ideas in international valuation practice and law.

Fabian Wenner

Land policies encompass state and municipal interventions affecting land value, use, and distribution, including land use planning and public land ownership strategies. In practice, policies influencing land are often uncoordinated and emerge from various policy fields, following diverse aims often unrelated to land. Impacts of such policies on land may be expected and tolerated as side effects, or entirely unexpected by policymakers. This Special Session aims to explore these “unintentional land policies”, which may profoundly impact urban and rural areas, socio-economic dynamics, and environmental sustainability.

Land policies can be understood as “state and municipal interventions that influence the value, use and distribution of land” (Davy 2018: 3). These policies encompass conventional land use planning as well as instruments like land value capture, pre-emption rights, building obligations, and development strategies relying on public land ownership (Hengstermann et al. 2023). Traditionally, in the political context, the term “policy” implies a concrete set of ideas or a plan that has been officially and deliberately agreed upon and implemented by a government. Consequently, land policies usually refer to intentional and coherent sets of norms and instruments applied to land.

However, this definitional ideal is rarely found in practice. In many countries, "land policy" is not a clearly defined and organized policy field (Hengstermann et al. 2023; Hartmann et al., forthcoming). Instead, policies influencing the value, use, and distribution of land often emerge from other established policy fields such as urban development or agricultural policy, and are frequently uncoordinated. Additionally, policies in other fields with entirely different, sometimes implicit, primary aims (e.g., fiscal, redistributive) can have significant, albeit unintentional, impacts on land. These impacts may be expected and tolerated as side effects, or entirely unexpected by policymakers. Examples include (real estate) taxation policies, commuting subsidies, or educational policies, among others. Despite their incoherence and unintentionality, these policies collectively form the haphazard "unintentional land policy" of a state or municipality.

Academic discourse on land policy has so far predominantly focused on intentional effects—those planned and desired outcomes envisioned by policymakers. This Special Session aims to shift the spotlight onto the unintentional effects of policies on the value, use, and distribution of land. Recognizing their profound impact on urban and rural landscapes, socio-economic dynamics, and environmental sustainability, these unintentional effects may, in some cases, be more influential than the intentional ones. By better understanding unintentional land policies, we hope to more realistically assess the role of land policies at large and ultimately develop more nuanced, flexible, and resilient intentional land policies.

This exploratory Special Session aims to gather current or historical case studies from different countries that illustrate “unintentional” land policies. The objectives of the Special Session are to provide a platform for showcasing and discussing the various (un)intentional outcomes of policies on land across different contexts and scales, to analyze underlying mechanisms that lead to such outcomes, and to develop policy recommendations to mitigate negative unintentional consequences and enhance positive ones.

We invite researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to submit papers that should offer empirical evidence, theoretical insights, or practical recommendations. The session is open to papers with diverse theoretical and methodological orientations. We invite submissions that report on policies influencing the value, use, and/or distribution of land where this influence was: unintentional but accepted as a “side effect,” or entirely unexpected by policymakers. The session will be structured in the form of individual paper presentations, followed by a joint discussion. Selected papers will be considered for publication in an envisaged special issue of a relevant journal.

References

• Davy, Benjamin (2018): Land market/land policy. Official translation of: Bodenmarkt/Bodenpolitik. In: ARL - Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung (ed.): Handwörterbuch der Stadt- und Raumentwicklung. p. 267-278.
• Hartmann, Thomas, Andreas Hengstermann, Mathias Jehling, Arthur Schindelegger and Fabian Wenner (eds.) (forthcoming): Land Policies in Europe. Cham, CH: Springer Nature.
• Hengstermann, Andreas, Fabian Wenner, Mathias Jehling and Thomas Hartmann (2023): Innovative Land Policies in Europe. In: Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning.

Gabriela Debrunner, Josje Bouwmeester, and Jessica Verheij

This special explores global perspectives on the role of land policy in addressing the affordable housing crisis in different countries, regions, and cities. The session aims to start a multidisciplinary dialogue among scholars working on the intersection between land policy, property rights, and affordable housing provision from diverse geographical regions across the world. Contributions focus on different planning instruments on the national, regional, and local levels available to steer affordable housing outcomes and reflect on the role of public and private actors in housing provision. Insights from various international case studies highlight innovative approaches and best practices in affordable housing provision, covering cases characterized by different planning systems (discretionary vs plan-led), housing tenure systems (tenant vs owner-occupied), and land policy approaches (active vs passive). Contributors to this special session have the opportunity to contribute a chapter to an upcoming book (edited volume) on land policies for affordable housing.

This session aims to discuss the urgent issue of affordable housing by studying land policy approaches in different national, regional, and local contexts. This session will provide a platform for international dialogue, bringing together planning scholars with a housing study focus from around the world.

The global affordable housing crisis is a multifaceted issue that has escalated due to rapid urbanization, economic disparities, the growing importance of housing as a financial asset, and land scarcity. As a result, the provision of affordable housing is a policy objective that has returned to the political agenda in many jurisdictions worldwide. Delving into the

origins of the affordability crisis, this special session examines the significant role of planners in addressing housing issues. A crucial focus is placed on exploring the potential of different land policy approaches (active vs. passive) as well as different land policy strategies in activating planning instruments (e.g., zoning plans) in a targeted way to mitigate these challenges in the face of often strongly protected property rights.

In the field of housing studies, the role of planning gains has often been overlooked. Vice versa, planning scholars often follow a rather instrumental approach to address housing questions even though these remain multifaced and complex. Existing research combining these two fields of literature (land use policy and planning; housing studies) remains thin. As such, one of the primary objectives of this session is to address a gap in current academic literature: the underexplored connection between land use policy and affordable housing. This session will emphasize the crucial role of land policy in affordable housing provision.

The session provides a comparative overview of land policy for affordable housing across a variety of national, regional, and local levels. A major theme is the role of public entities and their strategic activation of planning instruments in the provision of affordable housing. By inviting contributions from scholars from diverse geographical regions, the session provides valuable insights into the potential and challenges of contemporary land policy for affordable housing. Various planning instruments, such as financial measures, zoning, contracts, and property rights, are analysed alongside the roles of different actors at the state, regional, and local levels. Concretely, the session has the following key aims and objectives:

• International   Comparison: Highlighting how different legal frameworks, including public   policies and property rights, in various countries, regions, and cities shape   different approaches to and outcomes in affordable housing provision.
• Diversifying   Perspectives: Moving away from a Eurocentric focus to include insights from   Asia, Africa, and South America.
• Exploring   Planning Instruments: Investigating the role of different planning   instruments in affordable housing provision, as well as their strategic   activation by involved actors, particularly looking at the effectiveness of   active and passive land policy approaches in various contexts.
• Understanding   Exclusionary Dynamics and Outcomes: Analysing how different land policy   approaches (active, passive) as well as planning instruments (e.g., zoning   regulations) can either mitigate or exacerbate exclusionary dynamics in   housing.

Scholars who wish to contribute to the special session are also given the opportunity to contribute a chapter to a new, upcoming book (edited-volume) on “land policies for affordable housing”. This dual opportunity will incentivize participation and ensure high-quality submissions, providing scholars with an opportunity for the wider dissemination of their research and insights.

Ayça Ataç-Studt and Peter Davids

Climate adaptation needs land! Many climate adaptation and mitigation measures require access to private land or changes in land use, such as implementing nature-based solutions, constructing flood defences, and adopting drought-resistant agricultural practices for resilient cities. This session explores the critical link between climate adaptation on one side, and planning, law, and property rights on the other. This lens is essential for framing how land can be used and managed effectively to combat climate challenges. We will discuss how planning regulations, legal guidelines, and property rights policies can facilitate access to necessary land, making climate adaptation efforts more effective. Join us as we explore these intersections and discover strategies for balancing property rights with effective planning to address climate challenges.

Climate adaptation needs land! Many adaptation and mitigation measures necessitate access to private land or require changes in land use. Examples include implementing nature-based solutions, constructing flood defences, and adopting drought-resistant agricultural practices for resilient cities. The need for land access highlights the crucial link between planning, law, and property rights. Understanding this link helps us frame how land can be used and managed effectively. Without clear planning regulations, legal guidelines, and property rights policies, accessing necessary land would be more complicated and controversial. In this session, we will explore climate issues within the scope of planning, law, and property rights frameworks.

Climate adaptation requires a better understanding of property rights and planning. When implementing measures for climate adaptation, maintaining a balance between the strong protection of property rights and the effectiveness of planning aims is important. Challenges of access to land and organizing multifunctional land uses can be discussed within this framework. For example, in flood-prone areas, creating flood defences like levees or retention basins often requires access to private land. Planners need to work with landowners to secure the necessary land through purchasing, negotiating easements, or offering compensation for temporary access. This process requires respecting property rights while planning for flood defences by negotiating with landowners.

Climate adaptation requires a better understanding of planning and law. Understanding this link helps identify the best practices and legal pathways to implement climate adaptation and mitigation measures effectively. How to integrate the dynamic nature of climate conditions into existing legal frameworks can be discussed within this framework. For example, legal frameworks can support integrating adaptation and mitigation measures into zoning plans, building codes, and land use policies. Urban planning can restrict development in high-risk flood zones and incorporate green infrastructure to absorb excess water. However, these planning measures need to be backed by legal frameworks that clearly define governance structures and responsibilities.

Climate adaptation requires a better understanding of law and property rights because these frameworks help determine how land can be used, managed, and protected. Challenges related to losing ownership rights, compensation mechanisms, and laws and regulatory frameworks to protect landowners from the consequences of climate adaptation and mitigation can be discussed within this framework. For example, in coastal areas facing sea-level rise, governments may need to implement managed retreat, relocating communities away from vulnerable shorelines. The success of such programs depends on legal frameworks that define property rights and provide compensation mechanisms for affected landowners. Laws promoting fair compensation can encourage collaboration, while clear legal guidelines can prevent disputes and ensure smooth implementation.

We encourage scholars from different disciplines to join us in discussing climate challenges such as extreme weather events, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, heatwaves, droughts, and water scarcity within the planning, law, and property rights framework. We welcome contributions that explore these themes theoretically, empirically, or methodologically, aiming to enrich our collective understanding and inform actionable strategies for addressing the complex challenges posed by climate change.

Paul Hudson

The proposed special session aims to foster a dynamic and interactive exchange of ideas on innovative financial mechanisms and governance structures to support sustainable nature-based solutions (NbS) on private land. This session will adopt a "Blue Skys thinking" workshop approach to facilitate a creative dialogue among participants. The goal is to leverage the collective expertise and experiences across a range of geographical and social contexts to advance the development of financial products and mechanisms within the given the challenges posed by complex property rights, planning, and legal issues.

The special session aims to foster a dynamic and interactive exchange of ideas on innovative financial a mechanisms and governance structures to support sustainable nature-based solutions (NbS) on private land. This session will be a "Blue Skys thinking" workshop to facilitate a creative dialogue among participants. The goal is to leverage the collective expertise, experiences, and perspectives across a range of geographical and social contexts to advance the development of financial and governance mechanisms for developing NbS on private land given the challenges posed by complex property rights, planning, and legal issues.

Nature-based solutions, such as reforestation, wetland restoration, and the creation of green infrastructure, offer significant benefits for flood resilience. However, financing and governing these initiatives on private land presents unique challenges. Property rights, legal constraints, and planning regulations can complicate the implementation of NbS. This is especially true when certain financing mechanisms (e.g., carbon or biodiversity credits) can have maintenance requirements that place obligations on the implementor that go beyond the lifetime of the project that provides the initial policy push or have an emerging institutional and regulatory framework that must be negotiated and defined (e.g., how will the rules around biodiversity net gain be interpreted by local planning authorities and those seeking to buy credits to offset biodiversity loss due to property development).

The objective of this session is to explore, discuss, and collectively work on innovative mechanisms that promote and sustain the adoption of NbS on private land. In this collaborative workshop, the group will have a series of guiding questions relating to specific themes related to NbS financing and governance as related to the integration of NbS into landscape/urban planning and management. Examples of such questions are: Designing financial products that incentivize private landowners to adopt NbS; How to create governance structures that address and overcoming legal and regulatory hurdles; How to engage the right stakeholders, including landowners, policymakers, and financial institutions; Scaling and replicating successful models across different regions and contexts.

Outcomes:

• Innovative Financial Mechanisms: Identification and refinement of novel financial products and mechanisms to support NbS on private land accounting for the property rights of landowners providing NbS and the communities benefiting from them.
• Collaborative Network: Strengthening of a collaborative network of researchers and practitioners committed to advancing NbS financing and governance in the context of urban and landscape planning.
• Actionable Insights: Help refine recommendations and ideas for innovative mechanisms into the ongoing Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme activities.

The session will conclude with an outline of potential next steps for participants, including opportunities for collaboration, potential research initiatives, and ways to integrate session insights into the ongoing Ousewem Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme funded by DEFRA.

Susan Bright

This session will explore issues that are emerging from the increasing global trend towards the private ownership of land that is also open to use by sections of the public; and/or contains public amenities; and/or in which infrastructure is paid for by private persons. Examples include shopping malls, recreational land, and private housing estates. It raises issues in relation to the enjoyment of fundamental rights (free speech etc), standards of construction, planning law, sustainability and property law.

Much land that was historically owned and maintained by the state/public bodies is now owned by private bodies. The aim of this session is to have conversations around the issues and challenges that have emerged. The following provides some illustrations; the aim of the session is to explore these and further issues.

In the UK, Australia and the US there is an increasing trend towards the privatisation of residential housing estates, which has become more pronounced as austerity has reduced the ability of governments to fund public amenities and infrastructure, and developers have seen the opportunity for further commercialisation. Evan McKenzie has identified emergent problems in the US where this trend is now decades old, and he flags concerns about sustainability. Cathy Sherry’s work in Australia draws attention to the illiberal by-laws that are found in privately-owned communities. Sue Bright’s work in England and Wales has shown how homeowners feel ‘cheated’ and she also explains which legal tools have been adopted to ensure that the obligations imposed on homeowners bind successors. Amidst increasing public concern, the Competition and Markets Authority in England has recently expressed concern about this model and called for a halt to non-adoption. Brian Webb is exploring how urban data trusts are increasingly being used in these estates to generate income.

Large parts of our cities, including shopping malls, are now privately owned. Through a case study of a shopping centre in Bristol Antonia Layard explored how law facilitates spatial enclosure through private property, relying on techniques of masterplanning, compulsory purchase, and stopping up highways.  Andre Van der Walt and Kevin Gray refer to these spaces as ‘quasi-public land’ which is used ‘more or less freely by the public for public purposes’. They reflect on rights enjoyed by the public in these spaces such as fundamental rights of assembly and speech, and rights of reasonable access.  Likewise, Layard reflected on what these spaces mean in relation to Lefebrve’s ‘right to the city’. Jo Hawkins has conducted empirical research exploring how people connect to local spaces, and the restrictive impact of privately owned spaces in the city centre.

Many urban centres are dominated by privately-owned mixed-use developments, often containing tall residential towers, office space, retail space, leisure facilities, and walkways and recreational spaces. Many researchers identify various ways in which these are shaping our cites exploring the role(s) of law (Bright, Blandy and Bettini); the phenomenon of vertical urbanisation (Nethercote); creating new layers of local government (Harris and Patterson) and impacting liveability (Gifford). Michael Teys has recently argued that the fragmentation of ownership creates an anti-commons effectively blocking redevelopment. James White and Bilge Serin conducted an international evidence review of high-rise development and argue that there are crucial lessons to be learned from cities that have experienced this: both the possibilities of increasing housing supply while creating more walkable and mixed use neighbourhoods; and the concerns that poorly planned and badly designed high-rise residential development can also cause gentrification and place pressure on already stretched local services.

The examples given above are illustrative and in this session papers are welcomed that explore these and other issues that arise in the context of the privatisation of public amenities and spaces.

Alan Mallach and Tal Alster

Densification, or the reconfiguration of already built areas to accommodate higher density, has become a major feature of both urban planning and housing policy. As such, it has prompted new legal frameworks and planning strategies, including zoning reform in the US, brownfields programs in the UK, land readjustment in South Korea, and Israel’s innovative ‘vacate and build’ model. This special session will pursue a comparative approach, in order to look at how densification operates under different political and economic conditions, and different planning regimes, and how those differences affect both the forms that densification takes, but also their outcomes.

Densification can be defined as any program, regulation or strategy designed to increase the density of developed urban land in order to accommodate more housing units and a greater population. Densification strategies have become a major element in both urban planning and housing policy among many developed nations, and to a more limited extent in some countries of the Global South. The recent growth in densification programs reflect the conjunction of a number of separate but related concerns shared by most developed nations.

One major concern, arguably paramount in the densification discourse in the United States but significant elsewhere as well, is the crisis in housing affordability, and the proposition that it is driven by a shortfall in housing supply which can be remedied at least in part by reforming land use regulations to encourage more housing production. Other policy concerns include redirecting growth toward already developed central areas to discourage continued outward expansion or ‘sprawl’, with its deleterious effects such as consumption of agricultural land, need for continuous expansion of infrastructure and longer and more automobile-oriented commuting patterns with their greater environmental cost; and the desire to create more economically productive and socially desirable urban environments, including maximizing the benefits of agglomeration, creating diverse, walkable communities and maximizing access to public transportation.  All of these have made densification a central theme in contemporary planning practice throughout much of the world.

At the same time, densification offers unique challenges and difficulties. Institutional and legal barriers, particularly where property rights issues arise and multiple separate ownerships need to be resolved, can be daunting, and have led to many creative legal strategies to make densification feasible. Planning and architectural issues, including contextual design and infrastructure provision, are complex, while densification particularly in established residential neighborhoods, is often intensely contested by local residents, raising complex issues of democratic process and the competition of private and public goods. The cost of redevelopment, particularly where demolition and environmental remediation may be needed, may raise financial feasibility questions. Last but not least, social justice issues, including the potential of gentrification and displacement, and the loss of affordable housing or green space, can be significant considerations.

These issues - both the putative benefits of densification and the challenges it raises - cut across national borders, but are expressed in different ways under different political regimes, planning frameworks and cultural dynamics, making densification in many ways an ideal subject for cross-national comparative analysis. Densification can take many different forms, and many countries have already developed distinctive approaches to densification or models of densification, including the land readjustment model in Japan and South Korea, the focus on zoning reform in the United States, or the Israeli resident-developer redevelopment partnership model known as “pinui-binui” or ‘vacate and build’. The existence of these and other models offers great opportunities for cross-national learning, with potentially valuable implications for improving densification policy and practice across the board.

The special session aims to serve as an introduction to the comparative exploration of legal, planning, economic and social issues associated with densification.

Dragana Damjanovic, Paul Hahnenkamp, Charlotte Damböck, Annalena Rinnhofer, and Oliver Peck

The climate and biodiversity crises require fundamental changes in planning and land use. As legal scholars we observe that the current legal systems in Europe do not provide the necessary means to manage transformative actions or even hinder them. We thus want to pose the question if a social-ecological transformation in planning and land use entails a transformation of the legal system itself. Inputs on the current state of the fundamental right to property, on new forms of administrative action and on aspects contributed by general applications should constitute core aspects of this special session and guide the further discussion on the function of law in the social-ecological transformation.

The climate and biodiversity crises require fundamental changes in planning and land use. As legal scholars we observe that the current legal systems Europe, strongly imprinted by classical liberalism and its neoliberal modification, do not provide all of the necessary means to manage transformative actions or even hinder them: The scope of individual property rights’ protection enlarged over the last decades; the established zoning pattern of negative planning led to increasing urban sprawl and soil sealing; traditional types of administrative acts often lack flexibility; special legal regimes like e.g. building law are vastly aligned with new construction instead of the transformation of the building stock.

Against this backdrop, we want to pose the question if a social-ecological transformation in planning and land use entails a transformation of the legal system itself. We want to organize a special session and start the panel with two inputs (each 15-20 min max) to present our legal thoughts on these aspects with special regard to the legal situation in Austria and afterwards open the session to further inputs, which can be allocated to the panel from the applications of the general call for papers, and discussion.

Our first input will address the aforementioned extension of the fundamental right to property which results in a fortified position of property owners – also in the case of limited resources like land. It aggravates state interferences and enables owners to challenge them while civil society is barely entitled to a comparable legal stand in order to scrutinize the owner’s use. Climate and environmental policies deem it necessary to reconsider the concept of private ownership and property rights on limited resources altogether ­– challenging the classical, abstract concept of property and shifting to a more functional one dependent on the concrete nature of objects and private rights respectively its societal meaning.

The second input shall – with regard to the case of urban renewal – elaborate on the (relative) confinement of traditional types of administrative action to manage transformation, as they do not correspond anymore to the diversifying field of actors and sometimes even contradict planning goals. E.g. renovation and decarbonization measures in the urban building stock require more hybrid forms of administration like setting mandatory goals and standards while including concerned actors in the decision making to mobilize their expertise and resources. Already today, civil law contracts between private actors and administrative institutions receive a growing role in the implementation of planning goals. At the same time, they do not provide sufficient transparency and legal protection.

On the basis of these two inputs we would like to open the discussion on the transformation of planning law and property law and invite scholars and practitioners to share their approaches or objections to our considerations. At the core, the discussion shall address, with reference to planning and land-use, two seemingly antagonistic missions of law within modern society, namely to facilitate steady ordering while allowing for openness and evolution: Law provides certainty for political, economic and societal processes but enables (potential) change for society within itself (see e.g. the ECtHR ruling on the KlimaSeniorinnen or the mobilization of article 15 Deutsches Grundgesetz in the housing sector).

James T. White and Nir Y. Mualam

The session seeks to offer a new perspective on emerging approaches to land use mix in cities that are undergoing transformative vertical urbanisation in the early 21st century. Drawing upon a diverse collection of international case studies presented by planning, law and design scholars and practitioners, the session will focus on an urban phenomenon which manifests when public facilities, such as schools, nurseries, and community centres, are co-located within privately-developed real estate projects via agreements and/or partnerships between public authorities and developers. The session’s presenters shall demonstrate how this new type of pubic-private collaboration materializes in practice using a range of policy instruments.

The session focuses on a specific type of urban mix: the co-location of public amenities and private uses, in multi story, multi-use development, where public floorspace is set aside together with commercial and resiential floorspace. We call this phenomenon ‘vertical allocation of public services’ (henceforth, vertical allocation) and demonstrate how cities tap resources to allow this mix of uses to materialize on the ground.

By discussing ‘vertical allocation’ the session seeks to critically unpack this urban development phenomenon and add substantive new evidence to the growing planning literature on vertical cities and high-rise urbanisation, mixed-use development, public-private collaboration, and densification. The session aligns with ongoing academic discussions about land use instruments and urban management by exploring value capture and other tools that help cities in supplying much needed urban infrastructure. Given its policy focus, the session is intended to provide case-study vignettes exemplifying how urban policies enable/disable this type of private-public mix, thus encouraging cross-national comparative perspective on city planning.

The session’s overarching argument is that vertical allocation in mixed-use development is an emerging and significant practice in cities and is therefore important for scholars and policymakers alike to understand in the context of rapid urban expansion. Bringing together the expertise of scholars and practitioners through the case study presentations will allow a diversioty of vertical allocation approaches to be compared and contrasted and the advantages and disadvantages to be deliberated. By tracing how these projects materialise through planning policy and real estate practice into design solutions, planners, designers, and other urban decision-makers, will be better equipped to take advantage of the opportunities vertical allocation presents, while addressing its challenges.

Insofar, we have approached scholars in the field who may be interested to present their research. Several contributors who have expressed interest in presenting at PLPR2025 are listed below and we believe it will be possible to attract additional presenters until abstract submission closes.

Each presenter listed below will present a case-study which exemplifies the abovementioned challenges and opportunities of mixed use development; the case presentations will discuss the planning instruments used in building these projects and the different contexts in which they operate. The presenters will showcase these issues using cases from London, Zurich, Adelaide, and Tel Aviv.