ABSTRACT
Dutch municipalities have traditionally supplied land for development (Needham, 1992; Van der Krabben and Lambooy, 1993; Badcock, 1994; Van der Krabben, 1995; Needham and Verhage, 1998). Supplying land could typically involve a number of processes including draining it of water and raising it to well above the groundwater level, decontamination activities to clean up pollution, and providing services and associated infrastructure. This is very costly and takes time (Faludi and Korthals Altes, 1996). To achieve this, municipalities depend on central government assistance and grants, which are usually forthcoming. In the Netherlands there has been a general consensus between the tiers of government concerning spatial development (Needham, 1992; Faludi and Van der Valk, 1994). Dutch practice followed the 'golden rule' of development, that is, supplying the right amount of serviced land at the right location, at the right moment and at reasonable prices (VoJ3, 1997) and the supply of such land has been described as 'superbly efficient' (Mori, 1998). All this corresponds with the picture of the Netherlands as a planner's paradise (Faludi and Van der Valk, 1994). The consensus between the tiers of government, combined with government grants has, in many cases, guaranteed the implementation of spatial development plans. In this context, municipal land development companies have been seen as merely being implementation agencies (Kalt, 1998; Wigmans, 1998).
