Colombia - economic aspects of the country's land use

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  Dec, 2000  by Fernanda Furtado

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Notes

(1.) In Latin America, land has historically been an important source of wealth and political power, and for the majority of the population is still the major source of family savings. Acceptance of the idea of private appropriation of land-value increments in the urban development process, far from being confined to powerful landowners, is spread over society. The lack of social housing and adequate social security programs contributed to the dissemination of this attitude to people of medium and even low incomes.

(2.) As, for instance, in the use of market prices in expropriation processes associated with public works. In some cases, those (highest and best use) prices include even the expected valorization to be capitalized when the public work is completed. Evidences of this practice in overcoming obstructions to the completion of the related works may be found in many countries in the region.

(3.) An important political motive was resentment of the United States, going back to its role in the independence of Panama, prior to 1903 a Colombian department. Of the economic reasons, the most important were those flowing from the crisis of 1929, which strongly affected the price of coffee, the basis of Colombia's export economy.

(4.) As, for instance, in the comprehensive evaluation conducted by Jorge Macon and Jose, Merino Manon for the International Development Bank, Financing urban and rural development through Betterment Levies: the Latin American experience (New York: Praeger Publishers/IDB, 1977).

(5.) This municipal norm is understood as having introduced the term, "Contribucion de Valorizacion." Analyses of the case of Medellin are undertaken by Rafael Mora Rubio in Regimen de Valorizacion Municipal y Renovaci6n Urbana (Bogota: Editorial ABC, 1966) and Francisco Dario Bustamante Ledesma in Manual de Ia Contribucion de Valorizacion (Medellin: Teoria del Color, 1996).

(6.) Carolina Barco de Botero, "The Valorization Tax in Colombia as Applied at the Municipal Level." Department of City and Regional Planning, Harvard University, 1975. Mimeo.

(7.) William A. Doebele, "Valorization Charges as a Method for Financing Urban Public Works: the example of Bogota, Colombia." (World Bank Staff Working Paper 254, March 1977).

(8.) Fernando Ortega Garzon, Examen acerca de la Contribucion de Valorizacion en Colombia (Departamento Nacional de Planeaci6n, Informe de Asesoria, 1993).

(9.) Samuel Jaramillo, "La Contribucion de Valorizacion y la Participacion en Plusvalias" (Essay presented to the Lincoln Institute, 1997).

(10.) For an evaluation of these trends in the use of the instrument in Latin American countries, see Guillermo Geisse and Francisco Sabatini, "Urban Land-Markets Studies in Latin America," in Matthew Cullen and Sharon Woolery, eds. World Congress on Land Policy, 1980. (Lexington, MA/Toronto: Lexington Books-D.C. Heath, 1982), pp. 149-176.

(11.) This process is analyzed in the author's doctoral dissertation, "Land Value Recapture in Latin America: debilities in implementation, ambiguities in interpretation." (Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1999).

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