Progress 10/01/04 to 09/30/08
Outputs
OUTPUTS: For purposes of supporting the hedonic and affordability analyses, the transaction data set for all three regions (Rochester, Albany, Binghamton) has been updated and truncated to include only transactions between 2004-2006 (the earlier data we used are still intact, but have more missing data problems and are otherwise theoretically less appropriate for some analytic purposes, especially the hedonic analysis). Essentially all the transactions are now geolocated (which involve significant geocoding work in ArcGIS) in order to enable the creation of most of the neighborhood variables that we had used in our first analyses using the earlier dataset. Also, the Rochester area survey responses related to 2006 transactions only have been geocoded. Where possible these survey responses are linked to the full data associated with the ORPS transaction and inventory data. Because we drew the sample from the full set of single family housing transactions, the inventory data are not complete (ie only a limited number of variables exist) for a minority of the respondents. We are currently working on a hedonic analysis for the three area 2004-6 datasets with a focus on school quality and taxation issues. 1039 respondents completed the telephone survey that solicited willingness-to-pay data. Data formed the basis of a presentation to the American Planning Association Upstate Chapter Conference, Rochester, NY October 8, 2008. PARTICIPANTS: Principal Investigator: Joseph Laquatra, Hazel E. Reed Human Ecology Extension Professsor in Family Policy, Department of Design and Environmental Analysis, Cornell University. Co-Principal Investigators: Nelson Bills, Professor, Department of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University. David L. Kay, Extension Associate, Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University. Rolf Pendall, Associate Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University. Gregory Poe, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University. Partner Organizations: Cornell Cooperative Extension of Monroe County - organized and hosted first focus group that included farmers, planners, and local government officials; Cornell Cooperative Extension of Albany County - organized and hosted second focus group with similar participants. Graduate and Undergraduate Students at Cornell University: Christopher Peters, Jordan Suter, Dehui Wei, Margaret Cowell, and Thomas Hammer. TARGET AUDIENCES: Target audience: Planners and local government officials Efforts: Annual presentations at conferences of the Upstate Chapter, American Planning Association, web publications Target audience: Researchers, students Efforts: Conference presentations on key findings; peer-reviewed publications; chapter in a Ph.D. thesis PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: The only change in our approach was to request a no-cost extension for one year. Construction of the data sets took longer than anticipated because of incorrect entries that were corrected by our graduate student assistants.
Impacts
Results from our analyses (see Laquatra, J.; R. Pendall; D.L. Kay; J.F. Suter; N. Bills (2007). The changing nature of housing markets in Upstate New York. Housing and Society, 34(1): 65-75.) indicate that households place significant value on, among other attributes, more living space, greater lot acreage, and close proximity to open space. These preferences are driving forces for residential sprawl in Upstate New York as they are in many other parts of the country. Further results confirm that both local property tax rates and school quality are also reflected in the value of homes and help drive residential location choices. Upstate communities face growing issues related to loss of open space, higher costs of public services, and threats to what is increasingly perceived as their major economic asset: high quality of life. Sprawl often means longer travel distances, more frequent trips, and less access to public transportation, all of which contribute to higher energy use. Per capita costs of such services as schools, police stations, and fire departments usually increase as population densities fall. Sometimes, facilities in developed areas are abandoned while public money is spent on new construction in newly sprawling areas. The public can control the outward expansion of public services and encourage growth in areas with existing services. Containing sprawl can save taxpayers money by, for example, enacting policies that encourage growth in areas with existing infrastructure. Fundamental economic forces including the preferences of participants in the homebuyer market are important in driving sprawl, but public policies can translate these forces into patterns of development with fewer negative impacts on communities and the environment.
Publications
- Kay, D., Bills, N., Laquatra, J., Suter, J., Pendall, R. (2008). The causes of sprawl: http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/cals/devsoc/outreach/cardi/programs/la nd-use/sprawl/causes.cfm
- Kay, D., Bills, N., Laquatra, J., Suter, J., Pendall, R. (2008). A definition of sprawl: http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/cals/devsoc/outreach/cardi/programs/la nd-use/sprawl/definition_sprawl.cfm
- Kay, D., Bills, N., Laquatra, J., Suter, J., Pendall, R. (2008). The negative impacts of sprawl: http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/cals/devsoc/outreach/cardi/programs/la nd-use/sprawl/negative_impacts.cfm
- Kay, D., Bills, N., Laquatra, J., Suter, J., Pendall, R. (2008). Methods of combatng sprawl: http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/cals/devsoc/outreach/cardi/programs/la nd-use/sprawl/combating_sprawl.cfm
- Kay, D., Bills, N., Laquatra, J., Suter, J., Pendall, R. (2008). Pertinent statistics and trends in sprawl: http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/cals/devsoc/outreach/cardi/programs/la nd-use/sprawl/statistics.cfm
- Suter, J.F., G.L. Poe, N.L. Bills and D.L. Kay, "Implicit Prices for Open Space in Urban, Suburban, and Rural Areas." Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Paper Session, ASSA Meetings, New Orleans, Jan. 2008.
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Progress 10/01/06 to 09/30/07
Outputs
Activities: A questionnaire was developed for the survey of homebuyers in the Rochester housing market. The data sets for the Rochester, Albany, and Binghamton study areas have all had single family home sales from 2004-2006 appended to them, creating a continuous series of transactions from 1998-2006. All data sets include basic ORPS inventory information on housing characteristics. A variety of additional geographically determined variables (school quality, full value tax rate, surrounding land uses, soils, proximity to CAFO's and protected lands, etc.) have been integrated into the data sets where possible. Faulty geographic coordinate information is still in the process of being corrected for some of the 2004-2006 Albany and Binghamton data . Events: A presentation on project findings was given during a concurrent session at the 2006 annual conference of the Housing Education and Research Association in October 2006. A focus group was conducted at the Cornell
University Cooperative Extension office in Albany County on June 21, 2007. Participants included elected and appointed local government officials, planners, farmers, and members of the county's Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board. Open-ended questions about residential sprawl, open space protection, housing affordability, and other aspects of land use planning guided the one and one-half hour session. One-on-one interviews were also conducted with the Saratoga County Planning Commissioner and the head of a leading planning consultant in the area. Data from the focus group and interviews will inform a qualitative analysis of issues surrounding residential sprawl in the Capital District. Products: Jordan Suter completed his Ph.D. in Applied Economics and Management. One essay in his doctoral dissertation was based on data collected during this project. Laquatra, Pendall, Kay, Suter, and Bills published findings related to residential preferences and sprawl in an article that
appeared in Housing and Society. A summary of project findings was published as a Rural New York Minute on the website of Cornell's Community and Rural Development Institute (CaRDI). Work continues for a project website that is being developed with assistance from CaRDI.
Impacts
Construction of the data set for the Rochester housing market and subsequent analyses led to the observation that a home buyer's preference for proximity to open space is a driving force that contributes to sprawl. Further study indicates that this preference can be accommodated through land use measures, such as cluster development, that retain open space without blocking development. This formed the basis for a policy recommendation in our paper that was published in Housing and Society. Using 66,609 observed arms-length transactions of detached residential housing units, the implicit "spillover" value for open space land located within a 400 foot radius of residential sales was estimated using separate property value equations for urban (34 percent of the total observations), suburban (39 percent) and rural (27 percent) residential areas in the commute-shed surrounding Rochester, NY. Separate measures for public, agricultural, private forested and developed open
space are included to measure heterogeneity in open space values within each of the submarkets. The property value (hedonic) model controls for spatial error autocorrelation through a sampling technique that eliminates nearest neighbors and corrects for endogeneity in surrounding open space through instrumental variable regression. Estimation results indicate that implicit prices for open space differ across the study area, with the highest values occurring in suburban locations. The results also suggest that in the Rochester area, implicit prices for private forested open space land and cropland consistently exceed implicit prices for public open space. Finally, the results suggest that significant disamenities are associated with rural residential property in close proximity to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and wastewater treatment facilities and that similar disamenities exist for residential property in urban areas in close proximity to high traffic roadways.
Publications
- Laquatra, J., R. Pendall, D.L. Kay, J.F. Suter, N. Bills. 2007. The changing nature of housing markets in Upstate New York. Housing and Society, 34(1): 65-75.
- Kay, D., J. Laquatra, J. Suter, R. Pendall, N. Bills. 2007. Do residential preferences foster sprawl in upstate New York? New York Minute, Issue 11, Cornell Community and Rural Development Institute, Department of Development Sociology: http://devsoc.cals.cornell.edu/cals/devsoc/outreach/cardi/upload/11-2 007-RNYM.pdf.
- Suter, J.F. 2007. Implicit prices for open space in urban, suburban, and rural areas, One of three papers in Essays On The Economics Of Land Use And Water Quality, Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.
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Progress 01/01/06 to 12/31/06
Outputs
The data set for the Rochester housing market has been constructed using inputs from the New York State Office of Real Property Services, GIS, and other sources. Data have been applied to analyses to investigate two aspects of this housing market: (1) how household preferences for more space, rural amenities, and high quality housing are driving forces for residential sprawl, and (2) how the value of open space evolves across different densities of development. Two papers were published in refereed conference proceedings and are now being readied for publication in journals. Content for a project web site has been developed. Initial work to apply methodology to analyze Rochester housing market is now being applied to the Albany and Binghamton markets.
Impacts
Through access to research findings and outreach activities associated with this project, community leaders will have a better understanding of market forces and demographic trends that contribute to sprawl development. This will improve policy makers' and individual citizens' understanding of planning and management practices to make natural and agricultural systems more sustainable. The inservice education and other outreach activities will enable community and government capacity building for developing effective and collaborative land use management approaches and policies. This project has the capacity to improve broad land use and residential siting practices in ways that will enhance environmental sustainability in rural landscapes and the economic well-being of their residents. Extension Educators will gain insights into the development of policies that accommodate preferred residential siting practices in ways that enhance environmental sustainability. They
will become better informed about the complex issues involved in this area and will be well positioned to lead individuals, community groups, and leaders in activities that result in environmentally sound land use decisions. Individuals and families will also benefit from better land use policies that improve their quality of life and economic well-being. Youth audiences will become engaged in activities that expose them to these complex issues and promote interest in land use management career options.
Publications
- Suter, J.F., Bills, N.L., Kay, D.L. and Poe, G.L. 2006. Assessing the impact of open space on residential property values in urban, suburban and rural areas: a hedonic pricing study of upstate NY. Refereed Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Northeast Agricultural and Resource Economics Association. June 2006. Mystic, CT.
- Laquatra, J., Pendall, R., Kay, D. and Bills, N. 2006. The changing nature of housing markets in upstate New York. Refereed Abstracts of the 2006 Annual Conference of the Housing Education and Research Association. Ithaca, NY.
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Progress 01/01/05 to 12/31/05
Outputs
Our group elected to focus in on the three regional housing markets that are within the influence of the cities of Rochester, Binghamton, and Albany. Based on county boundaries, our dataset includes approximately 100,000 transactions in the Rochester and Albany areas, and 30,000 transactions in the Binghamton area. We have further refined the extent of each market in terms of residential sales that are in municipalities with significant proportions of residents who journey to work in the central city. Because our hedonic analysis is primarily concerned with the characteristics of properties and neighborhoods that are valued by the market, we have followed the standard practice of including only arms length sales at full market value in our final database. The initial interval for analysis was 1994 to 2003. However, plotting the geographic coordinates of the sales over this 10-year time frame suggested that the data do not provide adequate coverage for all counties in
the earlier portion of this interval. In the Albany region, sales inventory data was not available for all counties in 1994, and several municipalities had gaps in sales inventory data through all or a portion of the 10-year interval . In the Binghamton region, sales inventory data was not available for all counties until 1998, and several municipalities had gaps in inventory data through all or a portion of the 10-year interval. In the Rochester region, sales inventory data was not available for all counties in the 6-county metropolitan area until 1998, but all municipalities reported inventory for some portion of the interval. Based on the literature and our theoretical interests, we have identified the following key classes of variables for the hedonic analysis: the dependent variable, sales price or market value; public services and costs; characteristics of the home; characteristics of the lot; proximity to externality-generating amenities and disamenities like airports, village
centers, or CAFO's; other neighborhood characteristics like density; land use controls; and characteristics of the sale/transaction itself. Our core database available for the entire state consists of transaction data between 1994 and 2003 and that was made available to us through the NYS Office of Real Property Services online Data Warehouse. This data set includes approximately 70 fields with variable values for characteristics that fit into almost all of the categories listed above, though the vast majority pertain to the characteristics of the structure itself or the lot. Of these, about 50 variables are populated with data that is relevant to the hedonic analysis. In regression analyses performed to date in the Rochester area, these variables are capable of explaining up to about 55 percent of the variation in price.
Impacts
Through access to research findings and outreach activities associated with this project, community leaders will have a better understanding of market forces and demographic trends that contribute to sprawl development. This will improve policy makers' and individual citizens' understanding of planning and management practices to make natural and agricultural systems more sustainable. The inservice education and other outreach activities will enable community and government capacity building for developing effective and collaborative land use management approaches and policies. This project has the capacity to improve broad land use and residential siting practices in ways that will enhance environmental sustainability in rural landscapes and the economic well-being of their residents. Extension Educators will gain insights into the development of policies that accommodate preferred residential siting practices in ways that enhance environmental sustainability. They
will become better informed about the complex issues involved in this area and will be well positioned to lead individuals, community groups, and leaders in activities that result in environmentally sound land use decisions. Individuals and families will also benefit from better land use policies that improve their quality of life and economic well-being. Youth audiences will become engaged in activities that expose them to these complex issues and promote interest in land use management career options.
Publications
- Laquatra, J., Pendall, R. and King, R. 2005. Sprawl and residential preferences. Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Science Research, Orlando/Altamonte Springs, Florida, December 4-6, 2005.
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Progress 01/01/04 to 12/31/04
Outputs
The project team has met several times since the October 1 start date. We have decided that the town will not be the unit of analysis but will be the building block for defining the market area. Using commute maps, we developed a candidate list for study areas. We looked at commute maps for the following areas: Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Albany, Ithaca, Binghamton, and New York City. From these candidates we selected the Rochester, Albany, and Binghamton markets. These are large study areas. The Rochester market, for example, includes 12 counties and over 50 towns. We have submitted questions to be included in the Empire State Poll, have generated a list of variables for the hedonic model, and are framing the literature review.
Impacts
Through access to research findings and outreach activities associated with this project, community leaders will have a better understanding of market forces and demographic trends that contribute to sprawl development. This will improve policy makers' and individual citizens' understanding of planning and management practices to make natural and agricultural systems more sustainable. The inservice education and other outreach activities will enable community and government capacity building for developing effective and collaborative land use management approaches and policies. This project has the capacity to improve broad land use and residential siting practices in ways that will enhance environmental sustainability in rural landscapes and the economic well-being of their residents. Extension Educators will gain insights into the development of policies that accommodate preferred residential siting practices in ways that enhance environmental sustainability. They
will become better informed about the complex issues involved in this area and will be well positioned to lead individuals, community groups, and leaders in activities that result in environmentally sound land use decisions. Individuals and families will also benefit from better land use policies that improve their quality of life and economic well-being. Youth audiences will become engaged in activities that expose them to these complex issues and promote interest in land use management career options.
Publications
- Laquatra, J. and Boggess, J. 2004. Building a balance: housing affordability and smart land use decisions, Housing and Society, 31(1): 55-72.
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