Abstract:
The conservation of open space will become increasingly important as
populations expand and undeveloped land is converted to urban uses. The benefits
derived from open space conservation include protecting and improving water quality,
providing wildlife habitat, maintaining scenic amenities and rural character, and
supplying certain recreational opportunities. This study utilizes a hedonic propertypricing
model to estimate the benefits to nearby property owners from public open space
amenities in the Lake Tahoe Basin of California.
The model is estimated using spatial data generated with regional GIS databases
and ArcView/Arclnfo software. Proximity relationships are measured by area of open
space within pre-defined buffers instead of traditional distance calculations. Results
indicate that open space provides amenity benefits to surrounding property owners.
Specifically, it was found that a marginal increase of one acre in the area of open space
within a 100-500 meter buffer of a property leads to a $360 increase in its value. Open
space is also evaluated by type. Only California Tahoe Conservancy-owned properties
and USFS National Forest land are found to significantly influence property values.
Results indicate that it is other environmental attributes, namely distance to Lake Tahoe,
that play a more prominent role in determination of property values in the region.
Hypothesis testing further reveals that differences among types of open space are not
significant.
