A cross-jurisdiction catalogue of the public-cooperative mechanisms that let public authorities put land (the hardest cost) into the hands of cooperatives, from the review International Policies to Promote Cooperative Housing (Baiges/Lacol, Ferreri/ IGOP-UAB, Vidal/CIDOB; La Dinamo Fundació). Land access, not capital, is often the real gate — this is the land-side complement to the capital-side gap in moba-catalytic-capital. Interventions cluster across three moments (production, access, long-term affordability); the land mechanisms are:
a) Sale of public land — below market, on merit
- Concept-based competitive tenders (Germany: Konzeptverfahren / Konzeptvergabe in Hamburg, Berlin): land awarded on the best concept, not the highest bid, often at a reduced price for affordable housing.
- Systematised public-asset sale to cooperatives also seen outside the EU (Uruguay’s Portfolio of Properties).
b) Lease of public land — keep land public
- Leasehold (typically ~99 years) instead of sale, keeping land in public ownership (Germany, e.g. Hamburg, leasing municipally for the first time). The same surface-rights logic underpins Sostre Cívic’s Catalan model.
- Netherlands: unlimited-lease erfpacht with fixed or periodically reset ground rent.
f) Pre-emption & first-refusal rights — a route to acquire
- Denmark (since 1976): tenants get pre-emption over their building if they form a cooperative, requiring at least 60% of tenants in favour.
- Germany: pre-emption used by tenants to acquire and form the Mietshäuser Syndikat (syndikat-haus-gmbh); municipalities hold pre-emption in Soziale Erhaltungssatzung (“social composition protection”) areas, offering land to limited-profit developers cheaper.
Note: a policy survey, not a live programme. Use it to recognise which mechanism a given jurisdiction offers; verify the specific local rule before advising a group.
Related
- moba-catalytic-capital — the capital-side complement to these land-side mechanisms
- sostre-civic-cessio-us — surface-rights leasehold in practice (Catalonia)
- syndikat-haus-gmbh · syndikat-direktkredit — the German Mietshäuser Syndikat reached via pre-emption