Negotiating development: Planning gain and mitigating impacts

Summary

This paper argues for a strategic approach to the negotiation of contributions from developers in the context of planning regulation. It reviews why such contributions have become more important in recent years and examines the alternative rationales which can be used to justify such practices. It then summarizes attempts to provide policy guidance for these negotiations and summarizes the findings of recent research on the scale and content of the practice. The paper concludes by making the case for an impact‐oriented approach to determining and justifying such contributions in preference to a ‘planning gain’ or ‘community benefit’ approach.

Keywords:

• developers’ contributions
• planning agreements
• development impacts