Land Value Capture for Transportation: Potential versus Practice

Cities around the world have become increasingly interested in land value capture as a way to pay for infrastructure, such as public transit. In Toronto, tax increment financing has been proposed as a tool for funding the city’s Smart Track initiative. But would it actually work in practice? To date, there have been few examples of its use for transit in Canada. In this presentation, Dr. Murtaza Haider reviewed land value capture projects in the United States and Canada, and share original findings from an upcoming study on Toronto’s Sheppard East subway extension and its impact on surrounding property values.

About the Speaker

Dr. Murtaza Haider teaches Real Estate Economics and Data Analytics at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance. He has over 20 years of experience in analyzing transport-land use linkages in Asia, Latin America, and North America. He holds a Master’s in transport planning and engineering, and a PhD in urban systems analysis from the University of Toronto.