The full extent of public contribution to Tottenham Hotspur's planned new stadium project can be revealed for the first time, with the club positioned to benefit from controversial council plans to develop an area opposite the new ground involving the demolition of existing local businesses.

Spurs have bought substantial land in that area, now proposed for residential development, and recently moved ownership of the property offshore, raising the possibility of avoiding corporate capital gains tax when it is sold at a profit – although Spurs deny the transfer was motivated by tax avoidance.

The development, proposed by Haringey council, follows a renegotiation of Spurs' planning permission last year, when the club was released from a £16m commitment to improve transport and community infrastructure, and to build 50% affordable housing in the apartment blocks planned on the site of the current ground.

Tottenham's chairman, Daniel Levy, argued that those requirements were making it difficult to raise the £400m necessary to build the new stadium, and called for the wider development to boost land values and investor confidence in the Tottenham project. The council, determined to bring regeneration to an area which is vibrant but deprived and suffered the riot of 2011, shares the club's belief that their investment will be a major "catalyst" to improve the area, so the concessions were worth making.

A council housing tower block and rows of shops with people living above are to be knocked down to create a wide walkway for Spurs fans from a relocated White Hart Lane station straight to the new 56,000-seat stadium, with its shops, bars and food outlets; the council says on non-matchdays the walkway will be a "mini-town centre" public space.

Top, the property owned by Tottenham is shown in red; below, the council’s preferred option for redevelopment alongside the new stadium. Graphics: Guardian staff

The council "masterplan", which proposes wholesale flattening of property behind Tottenham High Road West, to be replaced by the walkway, 1,650 new flats and houses, shops, cafes, a library and promised cinema, has been met with utter dismay from business people whose premises would be knocked down.

Spurs stand to profit from the residential development because of the property they have bought in that area in recent years, including the Carbery enterprise park and some 20 shops and flats.

On 27 March, just before the council made the "masterplan" public, for consultation with local residents in April, Tottenham transferred all their property in the High Road West area to TH Property Ltd, a company registered in the Bahamas. That is the Caribbean tax haven home of Joe Lewis, the billionaire currency trader who owns a majority of Spurs via his holding company, Enic International, also registered in the Bahamas. Levy is, with his family, a potential beneficiary of a trust that owns 29% of Enic International in the Bahamas. Levy's salary, £2.2m in 2011-12, is paid by Enic International, which is then repaid by Spurs.

Richard Murphy, the anti-tax avoidance campaigner of Tax Research UK, said this arrangement gives clear potential for corporation tax to be avoided. He said: "It depends on the precise arrangements, but if property here is owned by an offshore company, there is no corporation tax on the gain when the property is sold."

A Spurs spokeswoman confirmed that TH Property Ltd is owned by Enic International, but said the transfer of the properties in Tottenham to a Bahamas-registered company was not to avoid paying UK tax on any profit made when the property is sold, potentially with residential development value.

"The transfer was to clear debts out of our UK companies which had bought the properties, so the club itself is not carrying the debts," she said. "That will help with the bank financing required for the new stadium. Both this and the club are UK operating organisations and UK tax will be paid on all UK transactions."

Business owners whose shops, workplaces and, for those who live above the shops, their homes have been targeted for demolition under the council's "masterplan," have accused Haringey of going too far to please Spurs, in the effort to keep the club in Tottenham and build regeneration around the new stadium.

Hard-pressed local councils are increasingly keen to help Premier League clubs, which have become stand-out multimillion pound success stories in often impoverished neighbourhoods.

Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City's occupation of the Etihad Stadium, originally built as the City of Manchester stadium for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and converted for the club afterwards, at a total cost of £127m public and lottery money, is regarded by Manchester City council as key to hopes of regenerating post-industrial east Manchester. Liverpool city council is currently threatening to use compulsory purchase orders on remaining property owners refusing to sell and make way for an expanded Anfield football ground; West Ham are benefiting from more than £150m public subsidy for their occupation of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

In February 2012, after Levy had sought to move his club out of Tottenham by challenging West Ham for occupation of the Olympic Stadium, Haringey agreed to release Spurs from the £16m commitment to local infrastructure and the 50% affordable housing requirement. The council itself and the mayor of London's office are instead to provide public money for the works, and a 22-storey tower block, Brook House, is being built to the north on Tottenham High Road, all of affordable housing.

When renegotiating with the council, Levy insisted major regeneration had to take place across Tottenham High Road, where Spurs had bought property, if staying in Haringey was to be viable.

"We have long said we could only invest in the area if we could see our commitment supported by others and that there was a real need to maximise the regeneration benefits and lift the wider area," Levy said.

The council agreed then, in February 2012, to produce an "area-wide regeneration masterplan", and that is the one now launched, proposing as its most ambitious option mass clearance of the existing homes and businesses, largely for new apartments.

The site of Tottenham's proposed new ground, next to White Hart Lane. Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The Guardian

In the summer, Levy secured €100m (£86m) from Real Madrid for selling Gareth Bale, and spent £93m on new players, including Roberto Soldado from Valencia and Erik Lamela from Roma (both cost £26m). Spurs argue they had to reinvest the Bale money in players to keep the team competitive while they press on with the new stadium project.

Brian Dossett, whose family-run timber and wood-machinist business has been on High Road since 1948 and employs 20 people, has joined other businesses to fight the plan. "They can't just take our factory and our land, which we have built over so many years' work, to build flats to make money; surely that is theft?" Dossett said.

Haringey council has said it has not yet discussed compensating or relocating businesses in line for demolition, because the "masterplan" is still only a proposal. The redevelopment could take 15 years to achieve, the council said, and Spurs point out that any money potentially made from it forms no part of the funding being assembled to build the new stadium itself.

That, approximately £400m to build a 56,000-seat stadium, stores and a podium around it, will be raised by selling naming rights and bank borrowing. The Spurs spokeswoman said the club is now confident enough about securing the funding to envisage putting the construction out to tender in early 2014, and have "cranes on site", beginning to build the new stadium, by the end of next year.

Spurs are emphasising huge benefits to Tottenham, and the council and local MP David Lammy hope the stadium project will prompt wider regeneration. A new primary school has been built at Brook House, and a university technical college for pupils aged 14-18, sponsored by the club and Middlesex University, is being built above a giant new Sainsbury's supermarket, due to open next month with 250 new jobs, mostly for local people.

Spurs own the supermarket site too, having assembled it from properties bought gradually over the years. On 27 March, it too was transferred to TH Property in the Bahamas, which is leasing the site to Sainsbury's.

• This article was updated on 30 October 2013 to reflect the fact that Joe Lewis is not Daniel Levy's uncle