[CPEO-BIF] Measuring post-cleanup stigma

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Cleaning Up Brownfield Sites Benefits Environment, Nearby Property Values

NC State News (NC)
July 14, 2016 
 
Editor’s note: The following guest post was written by Laura Taylor, an NC State professor of agricultural and resource economics who directs the university’s Center for Environmental and Resource Economic Policy, and was first published on the London School of Economics United States Policy and Politics blog. It is based on ‘Disentangling property value impacts of environmental contamination from locally undesirable land uses: Implications for measuring post-cleanup stigma’ in the Journal of Urban Economics. [See http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119016000243]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates over 450,000 properties are environmentally contaminated to such a degree that reuse or redevelopment of the property is likely to be hindered. Although the vast majority of these so-called “brownfields” are privately owned commercial and industrial properties, cleanup costs are often borne partially or wholly by the public sector.

… the EPA and state agencies charged with cleanup of hazardous sites often seek to measure one potentially large benefit of cleanup: the increase in property values around a site that are possible once it has been remediated through removal of the environmental contaminates. Many studies have shown that hazardous waste sites negatively impact residential properties that are in close proximity to the site, sometimes reducing property values by over 10 percent relative to comparable homes. Logic would suggest that once a site has been cleaned up, housing values nearby should rebound. However, the evidence has not always shown this to be the case. Some studies have suggested that property values only partially rebound after a site is remediated, indicating long-term stigmatization of neighborhoods is possible from past environmental contamination.

…

For the entire post, see
https://news.ncsu.edu/2016/07/taylor-brownfield-site-cleanup/

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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