Community-based feedback to improve land pooling for planned urbanization: A case study of Thimphu, Bhutan

Land pooling can potentially be an effective strategy for public infrastructure projects, especially in small but growing cities where rural-to-urban transition gives rise to the prospect of well-planned greenfield development. Seen as a more inclusive and less costly alternative to land acquisition, land pooling has been used for urbanization projects in Japan, Germany, Korea, United States, Australia, India and Thailand, among others. However, little empirical evidence exists on the experience of communities who participate in land pooling—particularly in developing Asia. This paper reviews the literature to compare outcomes of land acquisition and land pooling; presents a simple model to illustrate the gains from land pooling; and, to evaluate land pooling in practice, uses an original primary data set from 1200 households in four Local Area Plans (LAPs) in southern Thimphu, Bhutan, to assess land price growth as well as project beneficiary satisfaction with the consultation, planning, and construction phases of a land pooling project. Results indicate that land prices in the LAPs increased, due in part to additional public services but in large part to a rise in urbanization over time. Among original landowners, results from a community feedback survey show that not all households have access to the services that were to be provided when land pooling was implemented. Thus, land pooling participants benefited from the increased land prices but not all were satisfied with the quality of works, particularly in terms of a lack of maintenance and recreational areas. Increased property prices also have implications for the availability and affordability of rental housing, as no pooled land was reserved for low-income housing in the LAPs. The case study has implications for government and multilateral development bank policy for land pooling and similar mechanisms for planned urbanization.