Legal barriers to 3D cadastre implementation: What is the issue?

The ways society use and occupy space occur in multiple dimensions; however, the ways we manage and administer space relies on two-dimensional information representations (2D). The legal ambiguity and administrative limitations inherent in such practices are becoming increasingly pronounced within land administration especially for urban areas. In response, a research domain has emerged – termed by specialists as ‘3D Cadastres’ – to seek greater correspondence between the administration of legal land and property (parcel) boundaries and the reality of physical bounds of structures themselves. Within this corpus of literature, advances in the technical domain are evident. However, other areas of research have not experienced the same degree of attention, with a particular lag in analysis of legal issues: this apparently explains the lack of progress in the realisation of operational 3D cadastres. However, given many countries actually already administer ownership of 3D property within current statutory frameworks, is the continued concentration on legal issues a red herring? Are legal issues significant barriers to implementation, and if not, what other considerations are there? This position paper, comprising two main sections, aims to consider, clarify and reconceptualise the significance of the law as an obstacle to implementation of 3D cadastres. It does this by firstly reviewing the legal issues articulated within the literature and examining the extent of its impact using current practical examples. This leads to the conclusion that finding alternative methods and processes to overcome perceived legal issues actually facilitates progress towards 3D property registration and therefore, 3D cadastre implementation. This challenges the dominant assumption that legal issues are a significant barrier. The paper then proposes to consider the influence of legal issues through an institutional lens, as a way of gaining other insights into how legal issues can influence 3D cadastre implementation. The introduction of institutional theory and a theoretical framework provides a way to reconceptualise the role of legal issues in 3D cadastre implementation. The framework is further used as a sensitising mechanism for discussing broad-based institutional issues that have as yet, not been given significant consideration in the literature. The paper concludes with a response to the main research question and the proposition that significant barriers to 3D cadastre implementation lies not in technological or legal issues, but the more fundamental social and cultural issues that make up the institutional framework underpinning cadastral systems.