ABSTRACT
Since the 1990s, there has been in the Netherlands a gradual transition in urban development from a public governance approach to public-private and private approaches. Private land development is thus becoming increasingly relevant, and hence public value capture (PVC) tools. Besides the property tax and the remaining public governance approaches, DOs are the only PVC tools with some relevance in practice, and municipalities are increasingly using them to cover the costs of public infrastructure. As DOs in the Netherlands support on indirect rationales, they thus do not allow more than recovering the costs of necessary public infrastructure. Municipalities can impose compulsory N-NDOs, but they involve complex proceeding and usually do not allow to cover all the costs, so municipalities prefer to negotiate obligations with the developer (NDOs) because they involve fewer administrative proceedings and risks, and provide larger revenues. However, there are uncertainties and lack of guidelines about the scope and limits of negotiations which have so far – together with the recent economic crisis – limited their use.
