横浜市における宅地開発要綱制定と改訂の経緯分析

抄録

 This thesis intends to explore the rationale behind the adoption and abolition of Yokohama's local development exaction system (“LDE system”). LDE systems were independently and locally formulated by local governments in response to challenges they faced across Japan, and the city of Yokohama provides a leading example of a functional LDE system pursuant to which land developers were required to donate land for public use as a condition of their receiving development approval from the city government.
 In the mid-1960s, as Japan accelerated towards a period of high economic growth, the central government promoted the implementation of new housing developments by the private sector. These housing developments required unprecedented expenditure by local governments in order to build public infrastructure both inside and outside those development areas. At that time, Japan lacked strong national laws on the control of land use, and the city of Yokohama was uniquely vulnerable to the adverse consequences of unplanned housing developments caused by the huge influx of population from neighbouring Tokyo. In 1968 Ichio Asukata, the then socialist mayor, invited Akira Tamura, a young city planner, to the city administration to solve the town planning issues Yokohama was faced with.
 Japan's new Town Planning Act of 1968 did not contain provisions authorising the exaction of land. Therefore, Yokohama became the first big city to adopt an LDE system in 1968. Before its formal adoption, the city government had successfully reached an agreement with the Tokyu railway company about its duty to donate land to the public as a condition of its housing developments. Following this example, Tamura extended this concept of reaching agreements to exact public land donations across Yokohama. The terms of land-use exactions were recorded in bilateral agreements prior to development permission being granted.
 From its inception, the LDE system was used as an administrative guideline which ran the risk of legal challenge by affected developers. Although several lawsuits were filed, most verdicts were favourable towards local governments. However, as the economic situation deteriorated in the early 1990s, the Supreme Court issued verdicts finding in favour of housing developers. After Asukata's term in office, a succession of conservative mayors narrowed and reduced the obligations imposed under the LDE system and finally ended its use in 2004. Nevertheless, using the LDE system, the city government had acquired 307 hectares of public land by the end of the 1993 fiscal year, which was used to accommodate 150 public schools, accounting for 60% of all municipal schools opened between 1968 - 1993.
 The idea of development exactions persisted for nearly forty years, despite the central government issuing administrative orders to local governments instructing that they not make excessive demands of developers. Tamura wrote his doctoral thesis on this subject in 1981. Since then, no study assessing its aftermath and final abolition has occurred. This study is intended to present some idea of how local initiatives can be implemented independently by local governments in a highly constrained fiscal environment without any support from the central government.