The Government Land Sales programme and developers' willingness to pay for accessibility in Singapore, 1990-2015

Singapore has been internationally referred to as a successful model of state-led spatial development alongside world-class infrastructure investment, but there is a paucity of evidence on the effectiveness of the city-state's Government Land Sales (GLS) programme as an instrument of strategic spatial integration used to increase land productivity/profitability via accessibility enhancements at various locations in dynamic sequences. This study examines whether developers' willingness to pay for accessible land around major transport and green infrastructure facilities was consistent with the city-state's strategic spatial vision by analysing GLS transaction cases for the period 1990-2015. The spatiotemporal regressions of the GLS programme's transaction unit prices, attributable to tendering conditions, permitted development parameters, and locational characteristics, including the availability of major infrastructure facilities within certain distances, reveal that accessibility premiums appeared to be most significant within 500 m of mass rapid transit (MRT) stations, where Singapore's statutory agencies were likely to distribute state-owned sites reactively after the new MRT stations came into operation. Singapore's experience over a quarter of a century implies that government land ownership and development guidance could bring about competitive and sustainable market outcomes if a range of site sales implemented by local agencies are collectively programmed for strategic spatial planning in fast-growing regions of the world.