Analysis of land value caused by post war development projects in Northeast of Sri Lanka

Abstract

There has been a significant growth in Northeast of Sri Lanka due to ongoing Post War Development Projects (PWDPs) such as road, bridge, water supply, electricity, public buildings, amenities, infrastructure and commercial development. They directly give the benefit for urban and suburb people while PWDPs increase the commercial and residential Land Value (LV) according to the theories of urban development, land economics and real estate terms. Meanwhile Land related investors and policy makers face sort of information about fluctuation of current and future LVs due to PWDPs which was special intention to attempt this study to find the trend of LVs. The study was entirely based on quantitative data collection of LVs in addition to the project information on PWDPs while data were collected from observation, websites and dissuasion with primary stake holders. The most of the LVs were collected from Valuation Department and finally all LVs were sorted out to 373 land transactions. The analysis part mainly focused to find the relationship between dependant variable of LV and independent variables of Life Cycle Phases (LCPs) of PWDPs, distance from City Centre and year of value. An important result of this study is statistical findings to claim huge increment for commercial LVs and appreciation level for residential LVs. But, there is no reaction for agricultural LVs during the PWDPs. Furthermore, it is expected that in some selected areas there will have higher value at the completion stage of the PWDPs in future. Besides City Centre upgrading and Outer City expansion have been found respectively urban and suburb areas. The results of the study clearly reveal the value increment for commercial and residential land owners by PWDPs. Therefore policy makers may think to collect betterment charges from land owners. The local authorities need to maintain and preserve the project deliverables of PWDPs to sustain the LVs without low down them in future. For the investment purpose the real estate involvement in selected areas will be more profitable than ever.