Evaluating Property Value Impacts from Water-Related 'Green Infrastructure': A Hedonic Modeling Approach

Abstract:
Over the past several decades, the rapid growth of Southwestern United States desert cities is creating significant climate and water scarcity challenges. City planners are using green infrastructure to mitigate these challenges and develop more livable, sustainable, and resilient communities. This study uses hedonic pricing modeling (HPM) to evaluate how constructed wastewater wetlands impact home values integrated into the project design. It compares Crystal Gardens in Avondale, AZ, consisting of 14 engineered wastewater filtering ponds, to nearby neighborhoods with desert landscaping. HPM revealed higher values for Crystal Gardens homes overall (7%) and significant increases for homes on the ponds (14%). Results demonstrate the economic value of integrating water-related infrastructure in desert cities for home sales. For a more accurate benefit assessment, additional research is needed on how the ecosystem services provided by these constructed wetlands contribute to greater property values.

by Jonathan Davis; Bjoern Hagen; Yousuf Mahid; David Pijawka

Journal of Green Building via Allen Press https://meridian.allenpress.com/jgb

Winter, 2023;  Volume 18, Issue 1, pages 3–16.
https://doi.org/10.3992/jgb.18.1.3

Planning for green infrastructure: The spatial effects of parks, forests, and fields on Helsinki's apartment prices

Highlights

• Spatial effects of forests, parks, and fields on apartment prices are estimated.

• Forests generate indirect benefits in the urban core and direct in the urban fringe.

• Parks generate direct and indirect benefits in the urban core.

• Fields generate direct benefits in the urban fringe and no indirect spillovers.

• Successful green interventions are location-, benefit-, and goal-sensitive.

Abstract

As the importance of urban green spaces is increasingly recognised, so does the need for their systematic placement in a broader array of socioeconomic objectives. From an urban planning and economics perspective, this represents a spatial task: if more land is allocated to various types of green, how do the economic effects propagate throughout urban space? This paper focuses on the spatial marginal effects of forests, parks, and fields and estimates spatial hedonic models on a sample of apartment transactions in Helsinki, Finland. The results indicate that the capitalization of urban green in apartment prices depends on the type of green, but also interacts with distance to the city centre. Additionally, the effects contain variable pure and spatial spillover impacts, also conditional on type and location, the separation of which highlights aspects not commonly accounted for. The planning of green infrastructure will therefore benefit from parameterizing interventions according to location, green type, and character of spatial impacts.

...

The full-sample estimation explained 78% of price variation and returned the expected signs for all hedonic coefficients, except for that of distance to a forest. An increase in the debt and maintenance costs and a decrease in the condition of the property decreases price/m2. Additional rooms have a negative effect, reflecting the diminishing marginal utility of additional units of space. Increase in the property's age decreases price until historical status becomes relevant and price increases again. The yearly dummy variables are significant, indicating a drop in the average level of selling price/m2 from 2000 to 2001, followed by an increase from 2002 onwards. Increased distance to the city centre and coastline decrease price, whereas lot size is not significantly different from zero. The coefficients of the proxies for noise and air pollution disamenities are significant; a 100-meter increase in distance to rails increases average m2 price by 0.15%, while the corresponding increase for over-ground metro line is 0.19% and for major road is 0.36%.

http://www.hel.fi/hel2/keskuspuisto/eng/1centralpark/

The estimation supported the assumption of a CBD gradient in the marginal effects of parks and fields. Increased distance to a park decreases prices in the city centre, or, conversely decreasing the distance of a downtown property to a park increases its price, with the effect gradually declining as distance to the CBD increases. The maximum effect is estimated to a decrease of 1.5% in the m2 price when distance to a park increases 100 m, which is in the same range to the effect of recreational forests in the study of Tyrväinen (1997) that reports a corresponding increase of 0.5% (after currency conversion and average price normalization).... Increased distance to fields decreases price in the urban fringe, or conversely, decreasing the distance of a suburban property to fields increases its price. The maximum effect along this gradient is a decrease of 1.1% in m2 price when distance to a field increases by 100 m.

The Cloth GEM: Green Preservation Model for New York City

Executive Summary from Crauderueff and Associates
http://crauderueffassociates.com:

The Community League of the Heights’ (CLOTH) Green Excellence Matrix (GEM) brings together the city’s multiple goals in a single initiative to improve quality of life and preserve affordable housing. Results sought through the Mayor’s One City Built to Last affordable housing plan, OneNYC sustainability plan, and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection Green Infrastructure Plan are being achieved through the CLOTH GEM. In sum, CLOTH is poised to save more than $4 million over the next 25 years by fully implementing the GEM, while supporting affordable housing preservation and climate resiliency.

The CLOTH GEM, developed to assess and implement the Green159 Initiative, provides a replicable model to preserve affordable housing, improve public health, and mitigate climate change.

Crauderueff & Associates with Solar 1 and CLOTH assessed a range of technologies to improve  CLOTH’s 36-building portfolio of affordable housing. We analyzed and prioritized potential improvements for sola PV (electricity), solar thermal (hot water), energy efficiency, green roofs, rain gardens, and urban farming. We used three main criteria in our analysis: economic benefits, ease of  implementation, and community revitalization. CLOTH, with the assistance of Crauderueff &  Associates, Solar One and Quixotic Systems, Inc., is implementing the first third-party financed solar thermal projects in New York State. This seminal agreement is resulting in the construction of six solar thermal projects across CLOTH’s portfolio at zero up-front cost during the first quarter of this year.

We anticipate the solar thermal improvements will save CLOTH up to $1.35M over the next 25 years.

 
In addition to technical feasibility, we developed partnerships and financing strategies to advance implementation of solar PV. We also have developed three potential financing strategies for CLOTH to consider with respect to solar PV on fifteen buildings: pursuing a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), developing a CLOTH Clean Energy special purpose entity, and integrating solar PV into CLOTH’s Year 15 refinancing. We anticipate solar PV will save CLOTH as much as $1.18 million over twenty-five years while leveling out the costs of nearly 3/4 of CLOTH’s energy demand. We also ballpark that basic energy efficiency measures, such as lighting improvements and participating in the NYSERDA EmPower program, will save CLOTH more than $800,000 over twenty-five years.

Economic returns of groundwater management sustaining an ecosystem service of dust suppression by alkali meadow in Owens Valley, California

Abstract:

This paper addresses the economic tradeoff between pumping groundwater and maintaining a native plant community that provides an ecosystem service of dust suppression. A dynamic ecological economic simulation model was created to assess net benefits of production (i.e., economic rent) from groundwater management while requiring a producer to maintain or restore native groundwater dependent vegetation in a well-field in Owens Valley, California. Historic groundwater withdrawal during dry conditions followed by recharge during wet conditions has reduced vegetation cover, soil stability and contributed to the drying of springs and seeps. Findings indicate adaptive management that pumps less water, but high volumes in wet years and low volumes in dry years, generates greater economic rent while supplying water, sustaining alkali meadow and maintaining dust suppression. Adaptive management generates economic rent of $82.6 million (in 2011 $) compared to status quo management of $30.5 million over 50 years pumping less annual groundwater than status quo at respective levels of 73% (6830 acre-ft; baseline conditions) and 56% (4952 acre-ft; climate change scenario). Under a climate change scenario and a 2.0 m root-zone or less, it would be cost effective to cease groundwater pumping rather than incur substantial restoration costs of the native plant community.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915004371

by John J. Gutrich 1 , Keith Gigliello 1, Kimberly Vest Gardner 2, and Andrew J. Elmore 2
1. Environmental Science & Policy Program, Southern Oregon University, 1250 Siskiyou Boulevard, Taylor Hall 113, Ashland, OR 97520, USA.
2. University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Appalachian Laboratory, Frostburg, MD, USA
Ecological Economics via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com
Volume 121, January 2016, Pages 1–11; Available online 25 November 2015

Keywords: Groundwater management; Temporal loss of ecosystem service; Particulate matter; Alkali meadow; Restoration costs; Air quality

http://tinyurl.com/zrv5jlc

Dredging versus hedging: Comparing hard infrastructure to ecosystem-based adaptation to flooding

Abstract:
Efforts to ameliorate flooding have historically centred on engineered solutions such as dredging rivers, building levees, and constructing spillways. The potential for ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) options is becoming increasingly apparent; however, implementation is often limited by a poor understanding of their costs and benefits.

This study compares the costs and benefits of a range of hard infrastructure and ecosystem-based adaptation options to mitigate flooding under climate change using data from two catchments in Fiji. We employ unique survey data to document the costs of flooding under various climate change scenarios. We then use a hydrological model to simulate the potential benefits of a range of hard infrastructure and EbA options and conduct a comprehensive cost–benefit analysis.

We find that under reasonable economic assumptions, planting riparian buffers is the most cost-effective option, yielding benefit–cost ratios between 2.8 and 21.6. However, the absolute level of protection provided by this strategy is low. Afforestation provides greater overall benefits, yielding net present values between 12.7 and 101.8 million Fijian dollars, although implementation costs would be substantial. Planting floodplains and reinforcing riverbanks provide some monetary benefits that are lower than riparian and upland planting. Elevating houses is not economically viable under any climate scenario.

 

 

UN February 2012  http://tinyurl.com/h3zckwv

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afforesting upper catchments provide greatest overall net benefits.... Benefits increase by 100% or more when accounting for climate change.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180091500467X

by A. Daigneault 1, P. Brown 2, D. Gawith 3
1. Landcare Research, 231 Morrin Road, St Johns, Auckland 1072, New Zealand
2. Landcare Research, Gerald Street, Lincoln 7608, New Zealand
3. Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, 16-21 Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EP, United Kingdom
Ecological Economics via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com
Volume 122, February 2016, Pages 25–35; Available online 17 December 2015
Keywords: Disaster risk reduction; Cost–benefit analysis; Floods; Ecosystem-based adaptation