Agreements as land acquisition and compensation methods in public road projects in Finland

Authors

• Seija Kotilainen

Keywords:

public road, agreement, land acquisition, real property owner

Abstract

In the last decade the Finnish Road Administration (Finnra) has spent approximately €25 million on agreement-based land acquisition and compensation in public road projects. Finnra has also considered that the using of agreement process would improve its image. However, the success of agreement process has not been studied. This research focused on the perspective of real property owners. The first question was to discover if Deutch’s theory (1973) could explain real property owners’ satisfaction of the agreement process. Secondly, the advantages of using agreements instead of expropriation were studied. The last question concerned whether research findings from Sweden and Norway apply in Finland. Deutch’s (1973) research findings concerning social process factors explained satisfaction well. Feeling of trustworthiness (task orientation) and high levels of participation and getting information (communication) both had positive effects. Trustworthiness meant confidential terms, fair discussions and concentration on facts during negotiations. High levels of participation and getting information concerned real possibilities to negotiate. If an owner had made the initiative to negotiate (perception), this own activity of the owner also affected positively to satisfaction. Feelings of pressure and quarrels (attitudes) led to dissatisfaction. Also later experiences caused dissatisfaction, such as entrepreneurs acting badly during the construction or Finnra itself not keeping its promises. The process was not finished until all the conditions of the agreement were fulfilled. Real property owners had the advantage of using agreements instead of expropriation only when timing played an important role or content of compensation could be widened. These conditions were not always fulfilled. In Norway and Sweden agreements are the main compensations processes. In Sweden there has been a lack of publicity concerning agreement documents. This should be noticed when developing Finnish practices. There is also need for new researches in Norway and Sweden.