Following debates on land taxation rates, the Rwanda Institute of Sustainable Development (RISD) has announced its intentions to organise a dialogue aimed at discussing land related issues.
According to a communiqué from RISD, “the dialogue is in line with evaluating implementation of land reforms through discussions of land lease and land taxation,” the statement reads in part.
The dialogue will attract experts from LandNet, a local network involving relevant stakeholders dealing with land issues in the country.
Peter Bazimya, a specialist on land issues has on frequent occasions highlighted that land taxation is an area where urban planners have no action or even no interest because, in general, local taxation on land and rent is imposed mostly to raise revenues for the municipality, and most people think that it has nothing to do with planning.
He adds that land taxation has a lot of impact on land use because it gives an incentive or disincentive to keep or sell land, “High land tax will force some obsolete industries, like old factories or old warehouses, to leave the city or at least to leave the center of the city and go to the suburbs.”
Bazimya further explains that in this case, it’s not the action of the planner that is changing land use; it is the price of land and the taxation on land.
“So taxation can be used to reform land use in a city. It might be a more useful and efficient tool in bringing about more efficient land use than just drawing a plan with color and saying “this is industry” and “this is residential. Very often it is really the tax and the land prices which will change land use, not the colors on the master plans.”
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