In public-private partnerships (P3s), ground leases have become a helpful tool for public agencies to facilitate the development of affordable housing, schools, community facilities, and infrastructure development on publicly owned land. In a typical scenario, a long-term ground lease by a public partner permits a private partner to develop a project on public land. Whether or not a ground lease is a good delivery approach in a public-private development project can vary significantly based on who owns the land at the outset.
Ground leases are a logical choice in public-private development scenarios when the public agency already owns the land on which the private partner will develop the project:
1. Control and Oversight: Ground leases allow public agencies to control the land, ensuring the development aligns with public objectives and community needs. This oversight is crucial in public-private partnerships when the public’s interest is paramount.
2. Revenue Generation: Through ground leases, public agencies can generate consistent revenue streams over extended periods, benefiting municipalities or agencies seeking long-term financial stability from an asset.
3. Risk Mitigation: By leasing the land rather than selling it to a private partner, a public agency can mitigate potential risks associated with development failures or non-compliance by the private partner. The lease terms can be structured to ensure the land reverts to the public agency in such scenarios.
4. Preservation of Public Ownership: Ground leases in public-private partnerships allow a public agency to maintain ownership over public land, which may be located in high-value urban areas or close to other public facilities. They also offer flexibility for a public agency that may change the future use of the property.
When neither the public agency nor the private partner owns the land earmarked for development, or the private partner owns the land, opting for a ground lease might not make sense:
1. Added Complexity: Acquiring or reconveying land for the sole purpose of establishing a ground lease adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to a public-private project. Direct acquisition and ownership by a private partner streamlines the negotiation and development process.
2. Increased Costs: When a public agency acquires land it does not own, it will incur acquisition costs and ownership liability only to lease the land to the private partner. This increases project costs, potentially making the project’s private component less economically viable while reducing the public benefit achieved because of unnecessary added project costs.
3. Delay: The process of acquiring land, followed by negotiating a ground lease, introduces significant delay to a project timeline. In the fast-paced world of real estate and infrastructure development with constant market fluctuations and escalating construction costs, time is of the essence in delivering viable projects.
4. Public Review: Public-private developments often involve multiple sources of public and private financing, and transaction documents and agreements typically must be reviewed by public grant agencies and lenders. Public staff only offer guidance after a final review of project documents, which introduces significant uncertainty into the document preparation and negotiation process. Because of the complexity of ground leases, public comments received after ground lease negotiations can undo months of progress and materially impact the project schedule.
In a public-private development project, partners must assess the merits, risks, and challenges of using a ground lease on a case-by-case basis, ensuring their approach aligns with the project’s objectives, timeline, and broader community interests. While a ground lease may be a suitable ownership vehicle for a public agency that already owns the land, defaulting to a ground lease in other land ownership scenarios can introduce unnecessary complexities, costs, and delays that create more risk for a project than the risk the public agency is trying to mitigate with a ground lease approach.
INNOVATE P3 helps partners identify, analyze, and structure ownership frameworks that optimize the benefits of public-private partnerships.