Abstract:This article uses a hedonic modelling approach to assess the effect of visual accessibility of scenic lands on housing price. It estimates households' implicit willingness to pay for the visual accessibility of privately owned voluntarily protected scenic lands in a single family housing market. These lands are protected in perpetuity for natural, historic, and scenic characteristics.The premium price effect was captured using the visual accessibility variable, a combined weighted measure of visibility and proximity. This is named as Gravity Inspired Visibility Index (GIVI). A comprehensive review of eight environmental amenity from multidisciplinary sources provides basis on significance of 'proximity' and 'view.' A detailed methodology on developing spatial interaction variable using 3D GIS and viewshed 1 technology is provided. This variable was used to estimate the capitalized premium from the preserved lands. Both global (adjusted price premium on mean home value from the GWR model. The article offers a useful framework for evaluating effects of land protection for planning and real estate scholars. It also offers useful insight to conservation agencies, local governments, professional planners, and real estate professionals for prioritizing land sites with scenic views and for property development.
IntroductionThe study was conducted in Worcester, Massachusetts --the second largest city in the state. A cluster of 26 privately owned Conservation Easement (CE) properties with historically important1 The viewshed identifies cells in an input raster that are visible from one or more observation points. Binary values are added to the output raster with 1 meaning visible and 0means not visible.
Please do not cite this paper3 sites and land parcels with scenic amenities were the focus of this article. This study estimates the externality effect of these voluntarily protected lands, on prices of surrounding 1,243 single family detached homes. The protected lands serve as public amenities, offer several indirect and direct environmental, and health benefits to the local community. In past, several parks, trails, waterways, and wildlife areas have been protected this way using CE in the United States. CE involve legal agreements between private landowners and a non-profit or a government agency in the United States to perpetually restrict any future development rights on preservation worthy lands. Under the agreement, the private landowners are allowed to retain their land titles, continue to retain their right to own and use lands. They also have the option to donate or sell the restricted development rights, and claim equivalent federal tax credits (Mittal 2014;Wright, 1994;Gustanski and Squires, 2000). Billions of dollars' worth of public money is involved as tax credits to incentivize private landowners; therefore, to motivate conservation organizations and local governments to promote land preservation activities, this article estimates direct monetary benefits to the local property tax base due to val...