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The Role of Swiss Civic Corporations in Land-Use Planning

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The Role of Swiss Civic Corporations in Land-Use Planning Environment and Planning A 2011, volume 43, pages 185 ^ 204 doi:10.1068/a43293 The role of Swiss civic corporations in land-use planning Jean-David Gerber Institute of Land Use Policies and Human Environment (IPTEH), University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; e-mail: [email protected] Ste¨ phane Nahrath, Patrick Csikos University Institute Kurt Bo« sch (IUKB), CP 4176, 1950 Sion 4, Switzerland; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Peter Knoepfel Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP), University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; e-mail: [email protected] Received 11 July 2010; in revised form 23 September 2010 Abstract. Public authorities in charge of managing public real-estate assets at the local level face conflicting interests. In Switzerland, short-term solutions often prevail. This paper looks at another group of actors which are characterized by their long-term real-estate management strategies: civic corporations. In Switzerland old civic corporations, which share many characteristics with common pool resource (CPR) institutions, are large landowners, some of them very powerful, which seem to have been successful in the management of their assets over centuries. The objective of this paper is to address the role played today by large urban civic corporations in the implementation process of land-use planning policies, as well as to understand the conditions of their perpetuation within the complex policy framework characterizing Swiss and European welfare states. This research examines the real-estate strategy of the civic corporations of Bern and Churöie their choice to buy, sell, or lease parcels of land depending on their locationöin order to highlight their complex relationship with local authorities in charge of land-use planning. We show that CPR institutions such as civic corporations must not be dismissed too quickly as relicts of the past: quite the reverse, their strategies gain a renewed significance in a time when public bodies are looking for new ways to improve the sustainability of their spatial footprint and incorporate long-term thinking in their management objectives. More concretely, we show that their significance within land-use planning processes depends on their capacity to complement local authorities through the mobilization of their real-estate assets in order to support the implementation of land-use and urban planning policies. 1 Introduction Public authorities in charge of managing public real assets face conflicting interests. First, the law gives them a clear mandate to implement a whole range of public tasks, including some which necessitate real-estate assets. Second, public budgeting, reflect- ing private sector management practices, calls for a tighter balance between income and expenditure (Barzelay, 2002; Christensen and L×greid, 2006): real assets may be expensive to maintain (especially historical buildings or monuments), but they can also provide a secure source of revenue (leases, rent). In additionöand this issue is very often overlooked by the management literature (eg Ehlers, 1997; Frischmuth, 1998; Po« ll, 2007; Schedler et al, 2006)öpublic real assets can be a particularly useful tool for public bodies to use to influence the spatial development of particular neighborhoods or districts because authorities can count on the combined power given to them by land-use planning regulations and ownership of strategically located plots of land. This field of tensions between the implementation of public tasks, the control of expenditure, and the implementation of spatial development objectives is inherent to the functioning of local authorities. In the past decades different factors have exacer- bated these tensions. One observes in particular a strong pressure to sell public assets, 186 J-D Gerber, S Nahrath, P Csikos, P Knoepfel which can be linked to the introduction of new accounting rules aimed at importing private sector management principles into the public sector (Harringer, 2004; No« lke and Perry, 2007). On the other hand, local authorities are required to improve the way they steer their spatial development. As awareness that land is a scarce resource rises, there is a need for sustainable land management and planning (OECD, 2001). Land-use planning regulations often do not seem powerful enough to tackle these complex issues alone (Adams et al, 2001; Deng, 2003; Luithlen, 1997). Past experience shows the importance of real assets in creating a friendly environment for individual inhabitants and companies (not to mention the implementation of many legal obligations). Conse- quently, local authorities are caught in a dilemma: either sell real assets whenever possible for cost-efficiency reasons; or keep them because of their strategic importance in the implementation of current and future spatial policies (Kivell and McKay, 1988). Considering this broad context, this paper looks at another group of actors which are characterized by their long-term real-estate management strategies: in Switzerland, old civic corporations (Bu« rgergemeinde in German, or Commune bourgeoise in French; both refer literally to the communities of burghers in the Middle Ages) are large landowners, some of them very powerful, which seem to have been successful in the management of their assets over centuries (Buchmann, 1997; Gerber et al, 2007). Civic corporations are the heirs of a time when town and village communities owned many real assets in common property (in particular, pasturesöso-called Allmende). In the 19th century, when these communities had to give up most of their responsibil- ities in the organization of the local level of government to newly created political municipalities, the communities were still able to keep their real assets: in this new system, the exercise of political rights is guaranteed to all Swiss citizens, but the right to benefit from the real assets of former communities is reserved for the members of civic corporations. Since then, their main mission has been to manage these real assets. Civic corporations can be regarded as common pool resource (CPR) institutions. Ostrom defines CPR institutions as clearly defined groups of individuals who, while defining a set of rules regulating their use of the resource in accordance with local conditions, create a long-enduring local institutional arrangement capable of monitor- ing the actions of members vis-a© -vis the resource, resolving conflicts, and administering sanctions to offenders (Ostrom, 1990, page 90). Policy analysts are often victims of the biased view that CPR institutions are a `relic of the past', condemned to disappear in the context of today's policies. This lack of interest is demonstrated by the dearth of studies on the specific role played by this kind of institution in the policy process. This is due to a presumed loss of functionality by such institutions which, in the opinion of the analysts who make this assumption, has two main causes. First, resource appropriators are often less dependent on the local resourceöa factor which decreases the likelihood of the endurance of CPR institutions (Ostrom, 2000). Second, since the 1950s, CPR institutions have began to suffer from competition: either with the welfare state, whose policies have shifted resource- management responsibilities to higher levels of authority, resulting in less leeway for local property-rights holders, in particular CPR institutions; or with the private sector, which is perceived as more efficient. However, recent empirical observations focusing on the regulation processes associated with several natural resources in Switzerland have stressed the importance of CPR institutions, which have survived in many cases, despite the predictions of their inevitable demise (Gerber et al, 2008). In this paper we extend this argument by showing the importance of civic corporations, analyzed as CPR institutions, in the field of real-estate management and planning. The objective is twofold. The first is to understand the role played today by large urban civic corporations in the implementation process of land-use The role of Swiss civic corporations in land-use planning 187 planning policies, and to address the role of these CPR institutions within the complex policy framework characterizing European welfare states and the conditions of their success in terms of wealth, size, political importance, and perpetuation as important landowners, considering that they share the same territory öand some of the same responsibilitiesöas municipal authorities. The second objective is to investigate the way CPR institutions such as civic corporations complement the action of public authorities: more specifically, the delicate balance between the use of civic corpora- tions by political municipalities to pursue the objectives defined by public policies and the necessary autonomy of civic corporations which guarantees their ability to carry out these tasks. 1.1 The civic corporations The organization of the state in Switzerland is characterized by three executive levels: more than 2500 political municipalities (local authorities); the twenty-six cantons; and the Confederation. They work together in a form of `cooperative federalism': ``the completion of federal legislation by the cantons, the implementation of federal programs by cantonal and local authorities, and extensive financeöand revenueö sharing'' (Linder, 1994, page 55). According to the Swiss Federal Constitution, the organization
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