Factors Affecting Residential Property Development Patterns

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 2007

In this paper I present an empirical analysis of spatial patterns in land markets in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, between 2000 and 2003. It is well known that land markets reflect a variety of spatial factors that collectively influence market value, yet it is empirically difficult to sort out the relative contribution of overall and localized, the spatial and aspatial determinants of sales prices. Some of the classical assumptions about urban form that feed into hedonic analyses of land markets are explored. Then, three analyses are presented: simple visualization of single-family residential sales prices with regard to factors likely to influence land value, univariate and bivariate measures of spatial autocorrelation, and, finally, spatial econometric hedonic modeling.

Journal of Housing Economics, 2012

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Urban Studies, 2009

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effects of high-density zoning on multifamily housing construction from 1990 to 2000 in the suburbs of six US metropolitan areas. Zoning constraints are measured as the total number of high-density units allowed by right in each suburban jurisdiction obtained from local zoning ordinances and geographical information data. Using two-stage least squares, the analysis provides two important results: zoning as practised by suburban governments in the six metropolitan areas limits the construction of multifamily housing below market determined levels; and, multifamily zoning constraints are not exogenous but vary systematically with distance from the central city and with the racial composition of the community in 1960.

Journal of Urban Economics, 2006

Many communities on the urban fringe are implementing a range of policies to preserve farmland and open space, cluster residential development, and guide development to areas with existing infrastructure. These efforts are an attempt to control overall growth and the concomitant loss in open space and also to counter a trend toward the so-called large lot development that often takes place in these areas. Planners have argued that policies to manage density are the most important local policy focus for urban areas in the coming years. It is possible that large lot development and sprawl are themselves the result of government policy. Most local governments use zoning to establish minimum acreage requirements for each residential dwelling unit; in ex-urban localities, these limits are often quite high. Developers might build a subdivision with average lot sizes greater than the minimum but they cannot by law go below it. Some researchers have argued, however, that the spatial patterns of development are simply the natural result of household preferences and market forces. In this paper, we address the question of whether zoning limits are the primary cause of lowdensity, sprawling development or whether market forces tend to dictate this outcome. If zoning limits account for low-density development in at least some cases, how would development patterns be different if there had been no such rules? We begin by constructing a simple model of the developer decision about the density of new development. The subdivision is the unit of observation, and developers must weigh both demand and cost considerations in choosing density, in addition to complying with zoning restrictions that vary across parcels. We apply the model using parcel-level data from a region where zoning rules vary but are exogenous to the period under study. Calvert County, Maryland, near Washington, DC, is an historically rural county that has experienced rapid growth in recent years. The county has a transferable development rights (TDRs) program that has led to a great deal of variability in the intensity of development across properties. We are able to not only examine the extent to which zoning has contributed to large lot development but also to determine the economic forces that underlie density decisions. Finally, we are able to forecast how density would have been different in the absence of zoning rules by estimating a Tobit equation that is censored for the observations constrained by zoning.

Sustainability, 2014

In urban America, land development and residential real estate have passed through a number of different phases during the post-WWII era. In contemporary discourse on urban sustainability, attention is often expressed in terms of intensity of land development, lot sizes, and square-footage of housing units. In this paper, we reconstruct the land development trajectory of a rapidly growing southern city in the United States and assess whether this trajectory has experienced any reversal in the face of socio-economic transformations that have occurred over the past decade or so. Starting with current land and real estate property records, we reconstitute the urban map of Charlotte using World War II as a starting point. Results highlight a decline in the average single family lot size over the past decade, while the average home size has consistently grown, suggesting that the city of Charlotte and its county have witnessed a densification trend along a path towards greater land development. This analysis both helps situate Charlotte with respect to other U.S. urban regions, and provides support for potential land-use policies, especially densification, when a balance between urban development, environment preservation, energy savings, and the achievement of quality of life for current and future generations are concerned.

2008

Professional Geographer, 2007

Although the literature on growth management is extensive, few researchers have explored policy-oriented evaluation methodologies. This article develops a new methodology to measure urban sprawl in order to evaluate the geographical effects of urban growth boundaries in Pierce County, Washington. The methodology utilizes residential building permit data from 1991 to 2002 that were put into a geographic information system and geocoded to the Pierce County street centerline file. The results of our study indicate that since the establishment in 1995 of urban growth boundaries there has been a substantial increase in the clustering of residential permits inside those boundaries. The implications of these findings are important for planning practitioners and the evaluation of growth management policies throughout the United States and elsewhere.

2019

Growth in housing units over time in areas that change from rural to urban and are added to urban areas is examined using data for decades before and after that transition for 59 large urban areas in the United States. Mean housing unit density increases slowly long before areas become urban with the increases becoming greater at that time and then tapering off decades later. On average the greatest growth actually occurs in the decade after an area has been incorporated into the urban area. Summary measures of growth after areas become urban are used to examine relationships of growth over time to other urban area characteristics. After areas have become urban, growth is greater in those urban areas having larger increases in overall urban area size. Newly urban areas have grown faster on average in the West, while those in the Northeast have shown the least growth. Barriers to urban expansion including wetlands and having an arid climate also seem to encourage more rapid development. The combination of overall urban growth and barriers to development are used in simple models to make surprisingly good predictions of the growth of these areas over time.

Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies, 2001

This paper examines land development patterns by using an integrated approach that combines Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial econometric models. It presents evidence that land development sites are affected by each other, and that any attempt to analyze the land development process without consideration of spatial dependence will most likely yield biased parameter estimates, misleading significant levels, and insufficient estimates of the dependent variable. It is found that spatial lagged variables not only improve model performance substantially, but also reveal the presence of clustering land development. This paper demonstrates that incorporation of spatial statistics is made easier with the application of GIS.