Infrastructure Engineering - Theses
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ItemProperty rights, restrictions, and responsibilities: their nature, design, and management( 2007)This research is composed of four broad sections: introduction, background, research and conclusions. The introductory phase describes the research problem and aim. It asserts that property rights, restrictions and responsibilities over land are designed and administered in a disparate, ad hoc and disorganized fashion which makes achieving sustainable development objectives difficult, if not impossible. This thesis aims to develop a framework for organizing the management of property rights, restrictions and responsibilities in a way that enables the achievement of sustainable development objectives by citizens and governments. The background section explores the problem more deeply. First, it looks back to the root causes: a diverse range of drivers including environmentalism, free market economies and social equity are producing legislative and policy sprawl. Second, it looks at the limitations of current attempts to overcome the problem: traditional land administration tools are being bypassed, small ad hoc legal and technical solutions are favoured and only limited holistic approaches exist. Third, the background section investigates the emerging tools being applied to the problem: ontological design, social learning, SDI and spatial technologies, uncertainty theory and new funding models could all profoundly influence the management of land interests. The research section uses the contextual understanding to develop, justify and execute a robust research design. The hypothesis articulates that expanding the existing land administration systems with new tools and principles would enable better management of property rights, restrictions and responsibilities and consequently assist the achievement of sustainable development objectives by citizens and government. A mixed methodology involving both qualitative and quantitative studies is required to test the hypothesis. Additionally, top-down (government) and bottom-up (parcel) perspectives are also used. The sheer size of the legislative sprawl (Federal – 514 statutes, State – 620 statutes, Local – 7 statutes) and the administrative effort required to manage it is exposed at all levels of government. However, amongst the tangle of bureaucracy, pockets of very well managed, automated and spatially integrated land interests is uncovered. Additionally, the underutilized potential of the cadastre and existing registry to manage ‘some’ interests is identified. The bottom-up case studies provide a detailed insight into the effect of old and new land interests on individual parcels. The historical complexities of existing cadastral and registration systems and their deficiencies are also clear. Together, the results from these equally weighted case studies are used to test the appropriateness of the hypothesis, and generate components of an updated land administration toolbox, one capable of managing all interests in land. The conclusions section synthesizes the results and develops the ‘RRR Toolbox’ and ‘Property Object’ concept. The ‘RRR Toolbox’ includes eight components: policy, legal, tenure, institutional, cadastral and registration, spatial and technology, capacity and emerging tools. If a jurisdiction wishes to coherently manage its land rights, restrictions and responsibilities, then each of the eight components needs to be addressed and acted upon. The ‘Property Object’ is defined as an advanced descriptive framework of the key attributes (objective, action, spatial extent, people impacted, duration) that make up an individual property interest. The property object permits holistic treatment of all property interests, from ownership down to simple access powers, and also enables meaningful contrast between different interests. Together, the ‘RRR Toolbox’ and ‘Property Object’ provide new and innovative perspectives on the research aim. The results of the case studies reveal the hypothesis to be a point of truth. Together the concepts help to deliver sustainability objectives. However, this thesis does not claim to fully solve the problem: more work on each of the toolbox components and their implementation in different jurisdictions identified is required.