Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
in property values generated to those properties close to the stations, approximately,
25 million euros.
Another interesting example is the metro line known as
Metronorte
, where the
company “Telefonica” has funded part of the line to get to their new offices, in “Las
Tablas” neighborhood, called “Ronda de la Comunicación”. Through an agreement
with the state government, the company contributed with 9 million euros to build
the new station plus 5 million to construct the metro tunnel that crosses the building,
around 260 m long.
Proposals for Spain
Developer's Fee
The simplest way to achieve value-capture, it saves time and it is based in looking
for Transport Oriented Development (TOD) projects since the very beginning. It is
recommended to legislate in this matter and specially to apply the existent mecha-
nisms, like special contributions. If the developers are demanded to build part of the
transport infrastructures, that will definitely improve the quality of the area, there-
fore increasing the benefits of the buildings, this implies a higher sale's price. It
would have a high acceptability because society would not perceive this charge, it
could be said that this is a win-win strategy.
It is a measure that has already been applied, either to developers or companies;
however, until now it has depended on the good will of the benefited parts to con-
tribute to the construction. As an example we have Telefonica Company in
Metronorte
facing the situation of “
La ciudad financiera
” of the Bank SCH, that
did not have the willingness to contribute to the light rail construction so it could
reach their new offices in order to benefit their 5,000 workers to encourage the use
of public transport, in contrast, they built a parking lot for 3,500 places.
The main problem is that this scheme could be used to new housing develop-
ments but not in existent neighborhoods even though new transport infrastructure
would be provided, for these cases additional mechanisms should be established.
A Modification to the Urban Land Increase Value Tax
This tax is established by the city council and they are the ones that manage it. The
law says that the tax rate is based on the value increase between the value when
the property was bought and the sale's price with a 30% maximum. Nonetheless, the
collected taxes go to the general budget resources; hence it is impossible to differ-
entiate which part belongs to transport value-capture.
It is proposed that an infrastructure fund is established by the city councils in
order to capture the tax's proportional part due to transport infrastructure.
