Structural development of the tender based land allocation process enables an improved public building development activity

Abstract

Detailed planning for housing development is the responsibility of the respective municipalities in Sweden. Further, an ambition to develop sustainable building solutions based on wood is combined with each municipality’s building requirements, which increases complexity in the public process. Public actions leading to increased construction of wooden multi-family houses are important for all actors in this process, which is managed by municipalities through the Public Procurement Act or the land allocation process, depending on their development plan and strategy. The aim is to shed light on how the land allocation process is currently performed, to improve efficiency and provide transparency and structure between developers and municipalities. The study uses the public procurement process as a conceptual model to structure the various activities in the land allocation process based on the similarities between the two processes. Thereafter, it is applied to the tender-based land allocation process to provide a transparent process for municipalities to follow. The results display discrepancies in perception of the land allocation process and the level of competence displayed by municipalities when managing this process. This hinders the development of wooden multi-family houses in Sweden.