LLand is a consumer good and a very specific production factor. In each place, it is a resource available in limited quantities and cannot be reproduced. It only has value through its location and the access it gives to other locations, and to the uses that are made of the land in these different places. These uses are also, locally, sources of nuisance: pollution, congestion, noise, etc. Finally, the durability of buildings and infrastructure means that these uses have very long-lasting effects. It is therefore natural that the legislator intervenes to regulate the use and sometimes the appropriation of land, and also uses it to achieve public policy objectives.
Land has long been a subject of urban policies, because the regulation of its use makes it possible to guide the location of various activities in a territory and to control their coexistence in a place. Thus, local urban planning plans (PLU) aim to integrate housing, economic activities and environmental issues: regulation of densities, attraction of businesses, location of polluting activities, maintenance of urban agriculture , architectural and landscape characteristics of the constructions.
By restricting building land, the PLU can increase its scarcity and therefore its prices. An analysis of English data showed that in 2008 the price of housing would have fallen by 35% in the absence of the constraints imposed on their construction by town planning rules. In addition, the increase in land prices influences the social profile of new residents. Finally, the PLU, by authorizing the artificialization of a plot or the establishment of an activity zone, has a long-term impact, given the costs of demolition or renaturation.
Land can also be a tool for national public policy. Thus, housing policies targeted at neighborhoods are likely to affect the land market, by making an area more attractive when it benefits from aid. An analysis of the effect of the Borloo and Robien schemes for rental investment showed the acceleration of the increase in housing prices in the beneficiary areas.
Regulation of uses
It has only recently been recognized that the soil is not only a support for activities, but also performs essential functions for the environment when it is not artificialized: production of biomass, storage of carbon, reserve water, habitat of essential biodiversity. Land is then recognized as a limited natural resource, which must be protected. This is the purpose of the principle of “zero net artificialization” (ZAN). Here again, and more than in the past, regulatory constraints on land use will increase the price of land. Above all, the multiple functions of the land generate contradictory injunctions: many peri-urban municipalities will have to contain the pace of construction under the ZAN defined by the Climate and Resilience law (2021), and at the same time increase their social housing stock to respect article 55 of the law relating to solidarity and urban renewal (SRU, 2000).
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