Land sharing

Land sharing is a form of land readjustment, usually referring to smaller scale, more local government and community-based efforts. 

While land readjustment is primarily a public-private (formal) alliance, land sharing may involve different actors and a range of formal and informal partnerships that develop where more than two actors may be involved depending precisely upon the local circumstances.

The concept behind land sharing partnerships is that the landowner (public or private) and the land occupants (squatters) reach an agreement whereby the landowner retains the most economically attractive part of the land parcel and the dwellers are allowed to build houses on the other part, usually with full tenure rights. 

In some cases, the public authority or the private owner may build the units and sell them to the previous occupants at subsidized rates.

During the 1980's and 1990's, innovative “land sharing” projects were implemented in Thailand and, more recently, on a larger scale in India. 

Such techniques, in principle, upgrade physical conditions, increase population density, and relocate households displaced from their original land on site. 

Legal owners of land are given an incentive to participate. If they agree to share the property with the informal residents, squatters will release part of the occupied land (generally between one-third and one-half depending on the circumstances), usually the part with the highest commercial value. 

The poor will buy or lease the remaining part of the land from the legal landowners, usually at below market prices. 

However, land sharing techniques, as well as larger scale land readjustment as discussed above, require a high level of community organization, intervention of mediators and other outside groups (such as NGOs), and support of public administrators and other stakeholders at the local level. 

In addition, the feasibility of up-scaling land readjustment and land sharing in most developing countries is still open to question.