Saturday, January 22, 2022

Economic Evaluation of the Indoor Environmental Quality of Buildings: The Noise Pollution Effects on Housing Prices in the City of Bari (Italy)

Abstract
Among environmental factors, noise represents one of the most relevant determinants on human health and on the urban quality level and, consequently, on real estate values. Thus, the noise pollution issue plays a significant role in public urban policies aimed at increasing the acoustic comfort level and creating more sustainable and comfortable cities. The real estate market  is highly sensitive to noise factor and the residential prices can be strongly influenced by a high acoustic pollution rate. The present research aims to analyze the functional relationships between noise pollution and selling prices in four municipal areas of the city of Bari (Southern Italy). For each area, a study sample constituted by two hundred residential properties sold in 2017–2019 was detected for the identification of the main influential factors on prices and the investigation of the contribution of noise on them. The implementation of an econometric technique was used to obtain four different models (one for each municipal area of the city of Bari) able to explain the specific impact of noise pollution level on selling prices. From the comparison of the results obtained for each area, the outputs confirm the expected phenomena in terms of a decrease of noise component influence on residential prices from the central area to the peripheral. For the suburban area of the city of Bari, the model obtained does not include the noise pollution factor, showing a lower (scarce) importance of the environmental factor among the buyer and seller bargaining phases.

..The sound level (Ld) is expressed in decibels dB(A), measured on day, evening and night intervals, in the street where the residential unit is located. The data is derived from  the Strategic Noise Map of the Bari agglomeration, published in June 2017 by the Scientific Directorate of the Regional Agency for Environmental Prevention and Protection of the Puglia Region (ARPA Puglia) with (i) Rating 1: <40 dB(A); (ii) Rating 2: >40 dB(A) and <50 dB(A); (iii) Rating 3: >50 dB(A) and <55 dB(A); (iv) Rating 4: >55 dB(A) and <60 dB(A); (v) Rating 5: >60 dB(A) and <65 dB(A); (vi) Rating 6: >65 dB(A) and <70 dB(A); (vii) Rating 7: >70 dB(A) and <75 dB(A).
The average percentage decrease in the selling price corresponding to a variation from one Ld level to the next one is almost constant for the OMI central area (-3.31%) and for the OMI semi-central area (-3.46%) of the city of Bari. Conversely, for the peripheral area, the average percentage decrease in the housing price corresponding to a passage from a Ld level to the next one is lower and equal to -2.47%. This confirms the lower influence given by the factor related to the noise pollution on selling prices in the municipal OMI area in which the pollution is minor, due to less levels of road traffic and industrial traffic and less of a preference for recreational activities.

For the suburban municipal area, the model does not include the variable Ld among the influencing factors on selling prices. Thus, it is evident that a lower noise pollution level (average sound level Ld for the central area is equal to 64.8 dB(A), whereas the sound level Ld for the suburban area is equal to 57.02 dB(A)) corresponds to a less significant effect of the acoustic factor in the selling price formation.

by Pierluigi Morano 1 , Francesco Tajani 2 , Felicia Di Liddo 1,* and Michele DarĂ² 3
Buildings  Volume 11, 213; Published: 19 May 2021
open access 
1 Department of Civil, Environmental, Land, Building Engineering and Chemistry (DICATECh),
Polytechnic University of Bari, Via Orabona 4, 70125 Bari, Italy; pierluigi.morano@poliba.it
2 Department of Architecture and Design, Sapienza University of Rome, Via Flaminia 359, 00196 Rome, Italy; francesco.tajani@uniroma1.it
3 Mi.Da—Sound Design, Via Porro 9, 10064 Pinerolo, Italy; michele.daro@awn.it

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