Land development can be viewed as the product of a contract between the private developer and the public sector. It is necessary for developers to bargain with public sectors and citizens over the nature, scope and design of development projects, in order to secure development permission from the public sector. The development approval process incurs transaction costs for developing land, affects the willingness of developers to develop land. Thus, this research, based on the transaction cost theory, attempts to explore the impacts of transaction costs incurred by development control on land development decisions. The empirical analysis attempts to identify and analyze the appropriate dimensions of the analysis, the nature and effects of transaction costs in the development control process.