Open Land Development Partnership

UDOO is preparing to launch the UK's first 'Open Land Development Limited Liability Partnership'. We are bringing together experts in the regeneration and development of derelict land with owners including councils, individuals, and property development corporations.

Why are we launching OLD

- Many owners hold stocks of land which they are unable to develop due to a lack of time or money available, or because normal development option would be unprofitable.

- The UDOO network already contains many individuals with the special skills and expertise in the areas of community regeneration and economic development; social enterprise; organisational design and risk management; building and carpentry; information technology for effective knowledge sharing, decision making, project management, and trading; sustainable business systems; artivism; ecological architecture and the built environment. All these areas of work are focussed towards the effective development, management, and use of land and buildings which others would find unprofitable or unfeasible.

Who will benefit

- Owners of underdeveloped, dilapidated, or derelict land. Owner's will benefit by having the value of their derelict land increase and rental income generated, rather than having them become a liability with high maintenance and security costs. Those renting the land will have an incentive to improve it in ways beyond what would have been worthwhile in traditional tenancy. This is because they will earn a stake in the ownership of the land for such investments.

- Developers who invest their time and energy in land will benefit since they will be able to receive the long-term rewards of their work, as though it were an investment rather than an exchange or a gift.

- Social enterprise will benefit since they will be offered low cost office space, as well as coaching, to incubate their businesses, in return for their work in improving and maintaining the space.

- Local communities will benefit through the presence of open community centres, art galleries, courses etc.

How will we Organise

The partnership will take the legal form of an LLP and will be based on a member agreement between the initial developers and land owners. Our organisational form will be based on the principles of OpenCapital? which recognise that labouring should be valued as an investment just as much as financing. The OLDShareSystem creates incentives for the users and stakeholders of a service to invest in and improve the land they rent.

Open-organisation
The partnership will actively seek to expand and gain new members.

Land can be invested in the partnership either permenantly or temporarily. Owners of temporary investments of land can sell the property at the end of the period of agreed use/development, however the owner will receive only a percentage share of the income from the sale with the remaining share being invested back into the partnership, or being paid out as dividends to shareholders. This percentage split will be decided according to an evaluation of the relative amounts invested in the property by the owner and the land developers.

Once permanently owned by the Partnership" there is no need to sell the land again although individual land owners can divest by selling their shares. In some cases land might be sold to buy other land in a more suitable location. Tenants will have the right to occupy the property indefinitely, for as long as one pays the "rental".

Rental on land is a payment for private use of common resources. Therefore we want to charge different rents to people according to the amount that they are seen to be improving and investing in those common resources. This is a matter of collecting information from stakeholders about how well they believe an individual or organisation is contributing to well-being through their use of land.

Land-backed currency

In the long-term OLD will launch a form of 'trade credits' in which rents on all common land will be payable. Since almost everyone pays rent an 'Open Land Development Partnership' is the ideal platform from which to launch a mutual credit currency. The partnership could spend these credits into existence with a face value on a par with the pound. That is, every pound of rent which is due, could be replaced by the payee with a 'trade credit' issued by the land development partnership to fund public infrastructure.

New Infrastructure for OLD

OLD will use the expertise of UDOO, and ESP, to build links between members through netorking events and ICT infrastructure. This will include knowledge sharing, decision-making, conferencing, trading, and project management tools. We will conduct training courses to introduce members to the use of the tools.

By networking together the various projects, in new innovative ways, we will strengthen our work both individually and through greater coordination of effort between members.