Exploring the Benefits of Development Corporations and Land Trusts
Development corporations and land trusts are increasingly demonstrating their powerful impacts for municipalities, institutions and First Nations to unlock the strategic value of their real estate assets towards greater economic, social, environmental and community benefits.
As public sector funding is less reliable, and markets are less stable due to external events, it makes enormous sense that these types of organizations are looking to better leverage their real estate assets to amplify and achieve their mandates through development activities.
Across Canada and here in BC there have been incredibly successful examples of development corporations and land trusts that are proving their results through strategically de-risking, creating value and capturing that increased value on strategic land assets to generate new revenue opportunities, amplify community benefits and overall organizational mandate.
Some of these examples include:
ABOVE: Before and after photos of the revitalization of waterfront lands in Winnipeg and Toronto, facilitated by MDCs.
First Nation Development COrporations
Musqueam Capital Corporation
MST Development Corporation (partnership of the Musqueam Indian Band, Squamish Nation, and Tsleil-Waututh Nation)
Municipal Development COrporations
Forks Development Corporation
Waterfront Toronto
Calgary Municipal Land Corporation
University Development COrporationS
University of British Columbia
Thompson Rivers University
Super Powers of Development Corporations and Land Trusts
Mandate and Benefits
The mandate of development corporations are typically to either: strategically leverage the land assets of an organization to deliver key identified results for the shareholder, or its focus can be to revitalize a specific geographic area requiring special focus in order to unlock its development potential.
What we know is that these development corporations are proving to have certain super powers that their shareholder organization cannot achieve on its own. These demonstrated superpowers include:
Generating new opportunities for revenue for shareholders with their land assets and portfolios
Accelerating creation of a commercial tax base and net revenue gains for shareholders
Stimulating economic development and employment by focusing on areas the private sector is not yet ready to pursue
Focusing on socioeconomic issues that private corporations do not generally consider
Creating social dividends by planning and developing community assets
Enabling creation of strategic public-private partnerships, taking advantage of private-sector efficiency
Energizing and accelerating urban and/or waterfront revitalization and renewal
The operations, functions, scale and business models for development corporations or in-house real-estate management entities can vary widely. Yet the common thread is that they combine private-sector efficiency and expertise with public-sector goals and mandates for land development.
Want to explore a development corporation? We want to help.
Our firm has been working extensively with municipalities, First Nations and institutions to explore various models for development corporations that best meet their needs. We are helping them to establish these entities to achieve high impact results based on proven successes and lessons learned from development corporations across Canada and BC. We are passionate about helping our clients unlock the value and opportunity of their real estate assets to achieve economic and community sustainability.
We have deep insight and expertise in how development corporations can be powerful tools towards those results.