Capturing or compensating? Comparing legitimacies, legitimations and rationales of added value capture instruments

The development of land leads to immense increases in land value. Across different planning systems, there are calls for this revenue to be used to enable planning gain for the general public budget. This can be achieved through the use of added value capture: a policy approach rooted in the notion that public action should generate public benefit. Planning literature hypothesises that the successful introduction and implementation of added value capture depends on the rationale during the process of legitimation. Acceptance of the added value capture instrument is higher if it is justified with pragmatic rationales; capturing it for the ‘greater good’, such as financing local social infrastructure. Conversely, if justice-based rationales are referred to (compensating the “unearned increment”), acceptance is lower, as the direct added value for the public is not as apparent. The existence and application of the instrument therefore depends on the rationale, making the analysis of legitimising arguments interesting, even to countries that have not (yet) introduced the instrument. However, studies on legitimacies, legitimations and rationales are rare, and are not adequately considered in existing literature reviews. This paper identifies rationale patterns across different legal traditions. Switzerland and the UK are selected as two countries with different planning systems, but both have experience with added value capture instruments. Discourse analysis is used to analyse key documents at the time of policy change, to determine how the instrument used in each country is officially legitimised and the extent of variation across the different legal traditions. •Focus on capturing land value increases from public actions and transferring it to the public sector, with legal legitimacy.•Comparative study in the UK and Switzerland examining how different legal traditions affect legitimacy and implementation.•Analysis of two legitimacies: ideological (addressing social injustices) and pragmatic (effective use revenue).•Examines how legitimacy types impact public acceptance and the successful policy implementation.