I'm finding various studies on the impact of open space on property values from around the country. Here is a long article for all you academics out there which looked at the analysis of 20 studies in aggregate - although my reading of it shows the focus is more on "parks" I believe, than large swaths of wilderness/agricultural open spacelike we tend to have here. Proximity, not mere existence, appears to be the driving force behind appreciation. An excerpt:
The premise that parks and open space have a positive impact on property values derives from the observation that people frequently are willing to pay a larger amount of money for a home located close to these types of areas, than they are for a comparable home further away. If this observation is empirically verified, then owners of the enhanced property are likely to pay higher property taxes to governments because of the increase in the property's appraised value.
In effect, this represents a "capitalization" of park land into increased property values for proximate land owners. Conceptually, it is argued that the competitive market will bid up the value of property just equal to the capitalized value of the benefits that property owners perceive they receive from the presence of the park or open space. Economists refer to this approach as "hedonic pricing." It is a means of inferring the value of a non-market resource (a park) from the prices of goods actually traded in the market place (surrounding residential properties).
Here is an analysis on the impact of open space, and another and another. I love the website name of this last one: www.embraceopenspace.org. There are other studies on their website too.
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Your observation appears to be correct, Dan, in that all these studies are looking at the effect of proximity (and proximity only). Like, will I pay more to live across the street from the park than ten blocks away? The answer to that question is not surprising, though it's good to have some data to back it.
None of these studies address questions about the influence of open space on regional supply and demand of land for residential development, which has been the focus here. Still, credit for buyers has been easy for years, and we haven't seen Lafayette get bid up in price the way that the City of Boulder has.
So the questions will still linger, but it seems like what we have is a diffuse amenity value for property in the Lafayette/Erie area with its general proximity to open space, but nothing that requires reference to scarcity in supply of developable land. The frontier, in the economic sense, has closed in Boulder, but developable land remains in adequate supply for 10-15 years in the majority of the East County.
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