Property rights of urban underground space in China: A public good perspective

- Development process and classification of urban underground space are reviewed.
- Nature and structure of urban underground space property rights are analyzed.
- Defining attributes of urban underground space property rights are discussed.
- Civil defense projects and underground parking lots as cases study are presented.

With the booming development of urban underground space in China, “fuzzy” property rights of this special form of land use type are not only the cause of ownership disputation and registration chaos, but also may seriously delay the undertaking of related underground land laws or regulations. China's emerging property rights issue of urban underground space, especially the delimitation of the surface and ground or underground, is facing such a challenge. This article aims to identify the property rights of urban underground space by using a practical method that classifies the underground space as economic goods, and to analyze attributes of different property rights of urban underground space within the theoretical framework of public goods. We use civil defense projects and underground parking lots as case studies. Both case studies are the most utilized types and controversial ownership cases of urban underground space in present China. Our case studies indicate that it is a feasible method to avoid the delimitation of the start-stop height of 3D property right vertically, and directly define the attributes of surface and underground property rights in line with the supply mode of goods. Our results show that the method proposed in this study can effectively solve the dispute of property rights against problems rising with unclear contract and lags in the legislation of urban underground space and clearly delimited the interests boundaries among different parties of property rights for urban underground space. Ultimately, this study may offer better insight into the utilization and registration work of urban underground space in China as well as reference for countries with similar property rights issues.