Effects Of Land Use Regulations Research Articles

Estimating the effect of land use regulation on land price: At the kink point of building height limits in Fukuoka

This study estimates the effect of land use regulation on land price by exploiting the feature of building height limits of the aviation law in Fukuoka, Japan. The law limits the height of a building that is within 4000 meters of an airport to 54.1 m, but when the distance exceeds 4000 meters, the limits are relaxed. Exploiting this regulation feature, we estimate the effect of the regulation on land price using the regression kink design. We find that building height restriction has a significantly negative effect on land price and the magnitude of the effects depends on the stringency of regulation.

Land use supervision and environmental pollution: multitasking bureaucrats and spillovers across regulations

Abstract This article provides evidence on the strong spillover effects of land use regulations on environmental regulation enforcement in China. We find that the establishment of China’s Land Supervision Bureaus, which effectively reduced land use violations, led to a significant relaxation of environmental regulations by local officials and an increase in cities’ pollution intensity and overall pollution. In addition, the detrimental environmental effects of land use supervision are particularly strong among cities governed by officials with stronger promotion incentives. The results are consistent with a model in which multitasking local officials loosen environmental regulations to meet GDP growth targets in response to reduced industrial land supply. We further support the model by documenting land use supervision’s negative effect on new firm entries but significantly positive effect on incumbent firms’ outputs. (JEL D73, H77, P26, Q53, R52)

Government Land Regulations and Housing Supply Elasticity in Urban China

AbstractThis paper studies the effects of government land regulations (GLR) on housing supply elasticity in urban China. We first extend the theoretical framework of Saiz (2010), then use land transaction microdata, satellite‐generated data, and the construction of instrumental variables to analyze the marginal effect of GLR, and finally calculate the housing supply elasticity caused by GLR. Our analysis finds that GLR is an important reason for the overall inelasticity of housing supply in 272 Chinese cities, which reduces housing supply elasticity from 1.457 (elastic) to 0.872 (inelastic). Housing supply elasticity caused by GLR has declined the most in first‐tier cities and the eastern regions. The marginal effect of land use regulation is greater than that of land allocation and supply regulations. The initial development level and natural geographic constraint of each city also matter in China's housing supply market.

Government Land Regulations and Housing Supply Elasticity in Urban China

This paper studies the effect of government land supply, allocate and use regulations on housing supply elasticity in urban China. In particular, we first extend the theoretical framework of Saiz (2010), then investigate the marginal effect of each land regulation and calculate the reduction of housing supply elasticity using micro-data of land transactions and satellite-generated data. Our analysis finds that the government land regulations is an important reason for the overall inelasticity of housing supply in 272 Chinese cities, which reduces housing supply elasticity from 1.086 (elastic) to 0.750 (inelastic), a decrease of more than 30%. Among them, the marginal effect of land use regulation is higher than that of land allocate and supply regulations. In addition, physical geographic constraint is also a key factor, its marginal effect even higher than land use regulation.

비도시지역의 토지이용규제 체계에 대한 법제 고찰 - 비도시지역 산지를 중심으로 -

Land use regulations for non-urban area restrict the land use according to the zoning system and hierarchy system of the regulations. However, the classification system of the zoning system is not reasonable and there are problems with the classification system and the legal effect. Hence, when the land use is regulated for rural areas, conflicts of spatial values of conservation and development frequently occur, and social conflicts and inequality related to the restrictions arise. In this study, the main objectives are to discuss the fundamental problems and present legal issues along with practical examples through the legislation analysis and the literature review on land use regulation system for non-urban area. The results show the problems on several points: the legal effect of the zoning system and hierarchy system of land use regulations, efficiency of the hierarchy system, the spatial conflict between conservation and development, guarantee of property rights and infringement of the private property rights, and prolonged regulatory barriers and uncertainty. The necessity of reorganization of the classification system for land use regulations for rural areas and simplification and establishment of the legal effect of land use regulations were suggested as an improvement. The results regarding the land use regulation system for non-urban area will provide an insight into the improved classification system of zoning in rural areas.

HOW DO LAND USE REGULATIONS INFLUENCE INDUSTRIAL LAND PRICES? EVIDENCE FROM CHINA

Due to low industrial land prices and inefficiently used industrial land, China’s central government has reformed land regulations in order to promote more market-oriented industrial land. Considering the differences in land management between developed and developing countries, this study aims to investigate the impact of land use regulations on industrial land prices in China and the effect of market-oriented reforms of industrial land policy. Measures that capture multiple dimensions of land use regulation tools are incorporated into OLS models based on a micro dataset from 1999 to 2016 that covers Jiaxing City in Eastern China. The results show that (1) The land policy implemented in 2006 to promote industrial land marketization has had a very limited effect; (2) The impact of land supply on industrial land prices was decreased for land transferred through listings after 2006, which implies an immature marketization; (3) Zoning instruments has obvious effects on industrial land prices; (4) The results imply that the effect of land use regulations varies with firm ownership and development zones. The findings in this paper clearly show that the industrial land market should be more open and competitive and combined with a rational land supply to promote the market-oriented price mechanism.

The effect of land use regulations on farmland protection and non‐agricultural land conversions in China

This paper examines the effect of the Prime Farmland Protection Regulation in protecting high quality farmland from urban development and the subsequent effect on non‐farmland conversion in China in the first decade after the Regulation came into effect (1995‐2005). The empirical evaluation is conducted with geo‐referenced panel data for the entire country. Results indicate that the rate of farmland conversion was reduced during 1995‐2000. About two‐fifths of the reduction results from the protection of farmland with high grain productivity. There is no evidence of the effectiveness of the Regulation in protecting farmland during the period 2000–2005, regardless of land quantity or quality. Farmland development was accompanied by a reduction in forests and grasslands during the period from 1995 through to 2005.

Zoning and the economic geography of cities

Comprehensive zoning is ubiquitous in U.S. cities, yet we know surprisingly little about its long-run impacts. We provide the first attempt to measure the causal effect of land use regulation over the long term, using as our setting Chicago's first comprehensive zoning ordinance adopted in 1923. Our results indicate that zoning played a central role in establishing residential neighborhoods free of industrial and commercial uses. The separation of uses established by the zoning ordinance persists to the present day and is reflected in housing prices, the location of polluting industrial sites, and population density.

Jobs and Housing (Im)balance in the San Francisco Bay Area

A lack of affordable housing is a growing crisis for many communities in the US, particularly in urban neighborhoods with constrained housing markets. We discuss the housing imbalance and affordability crisis in the San Francisco Bay Area. Land use regulations are the biggest impediment in restricting housing supply in this robust and booming urban economy. Indirect effects of land use regulations are observed in the loss of housing wealth, greater spatial distribution of people across labor markets, and losses in overall productivity of workers. Specifically, we discuss the dynamics of housing supply and demand in the area to better understand the distribution of home prices and lack of affordable housing as it relates to the jobs-housing imbalance. We discuss various facets of housing demand, including employment, wage, and productivity growth. Finally, we discuss policy interventions that can minimize the adverse effects of the jobs-housing imbalance and promote greater housing affordability.

Do Land Use Policies Follow Road Construction?

We study whether local land use policies are modified in response to enhanced demand for building generated by a new highway, and examine the extent to which this effect of land use regulations affects building activity. We focus on the case of Spain during the last housing boom (1995-2007). We assembled a new database with information about new highway segments and the modification of the land zoning status in nearby municipalities. The empirical strategy compares the variation in the amount of developable land before-after the construction of the highway in treated municipalities and in control municipalities with similar pre-treatment traits. Our results show that, following the construction of a highway, municipalities converted a huge amount of land from rural to urban uses. We also show that new highways have an impact on building activity.

Land Use Regulation and Welfare

We evaluate the effect of land use regulation on the value of land and on welfare. Our estimates are based on a decomposition of the effects of regulation into three components: an own-lot effect, which reflects the cost of regulatory constraints to the owner of a parcel; an external effect, which reflects the value of regulatory constraints on one's neighbors; a supply effect, which reflects the effect of regulated scarcity of developable land. Using this decomposition, we arrive at a novel strategy for estimating a plausibly causal effect of land use regulation on land value and welfare. This strategy exploits cross-border changes in development, prices, and regulation in regions near municipal borders. Our estimates suggest large negative effects of regulation on the value of land and welfare in these regions.

Determinants of urban land market outcomes: Evidence from California

Our understanding of the effects of land use regulations and other aspects of urban form has been hindered by limited aggregate data and gradual temporal changes in policies. More widely available GIS data on land use and land economics presents opportunities to overcome these obstacles. This study was undertaken to explore the potential for land economics research that draws on parcel level spatial data for urban land markets, and uses differences across a sample of cities as the source of variation. Policy obstacles such as protected open spaces and other land use regulations, like the limitations caused by land forms such as water bodies and mountains, can be expected to alter the supply of land in ways that will be reflected in land market outcomes across cities. Based on a sample of data for 46 California cities, this exploratory analysis analyzed land market outcomes as a function of population, income and other factors in a closed-economy model, including a ratio that measures the concentration of developed lands within a city's radius or perimeter. The approach produced robust relationships consistent with other studies, and results consistent with expectations not just in terms of the signs of the estimated coefficients but in terms of their magnitudes as well. Indeed, the elasticity of land development with respect to population has been estimated to be 0.79–0.82 based on open city models. The evidence suggests that both land forms and land use regulations have a positive effect on land prices; however, it was not possible with the current data to distinguish the amenity effects of proximity to oceans and mountains from the supply constraints on radial city expansion. The analysis, nevertheless, provides encouraging evidence for future research of this kind.

Examining protected area effectiveness in Sumatra: importance of regulations governing unprotected lands

AbstractSeveral studies suggest that protected areas conserve forests because deforestation rates are lower inside than outside protected area boundaries. Such benefits may be overestimated when deforestation rates within protected areas are contrasted with rates in lands where forest conversion is sanctioned. Here, we reexamine protected area performance by disentangling the effects of land use regulations surrounding the 110,000 km2 protected area network in Sumatra, Indonesia.We compared 1990–2000 deforestation rates across: (1) protected areas; (2) unprotected areas sanctioned for conversion; and (3) unprotected production areas where commercial logging is permitted but conversion is not. Deforestation rates were lower in protected areas than in conversion areas (Mean: −19.8%; 95% C.I.: −29.7—−10.0%; P < 0.001), but did not differ from production areas (Mean: −3.3%; 95% C.I.: −9.6—2.6%; P= 0.273).The measured protection impact of Sumatran protected areas differs with land use regulations governing unprotected lands used for comparisons. If these regulations are not considered, protected areas will appear increasingly effective as larger unprotected forested areas are sanctioned for conversion and deforested. In the 1990s, production areas were as effective as protected areas at reducing deforestation. We discuss implications of these findings for carbon conservation.

THE COST OF LAND USE REGULATION VERSUS THE VALUE OF INDIVIDUAL EXEMPTION: OREGON BALLOT MEASURES 37 AND 49

This article presents an exploratory analysis of the effects of land use regulations on land values and land use patterns in a landscape near Eugene, Oregon. All land use regulations considered in this study, including exclusive farm use zoning, forest zoning, urban growth boundary designation, residential density zoning, commercial zoning, and industrial zoning, are found to affect land values and land use patterns both inside and outside of the designated zones. The framework is applied to measure the costs of the regulations versus the value of individual exemptions at the parcel level to illuminate the controversy surrounding Oregon Measures 37 and 49, which were passed to provide “just compensation” for “unfair regulatory burdens.” The cost of regulation is found to be lower than the value of an individual exemption for most regulations contested in the Measure 37 claims. However, governments tend to overregulate from the perspective of landowners. Although some land gained value under the six regulations and some lost value, the aggregate loss of land value was estimated to be several times larger than the gain. This does not necessarily mean that the governments overregulate from the perspective of society because land use regulations also generate public goods such as wildlife habitat and water quality protection. (JEL K11, R15, R52)

Land-use regulations and property values in Portland, Oregon: A regression discontinuity design approach

Over the past two decades, the tension between public and private interests in the use of land has given rise to state-level legislation seeking to limit government controls on private property. In 2004, voters in Oregon approved Measure 37, which required payments to private landowners for reductions in the value of their property resulting from land-use regulations. The central economic question behind Measure 37 and compensation statutes adopted in other states is, what is the effect of land-use regulations on property values? Economists investigating this question have typically estimated hedonic property value models with regulations included as exogenous regressors. This approach is likely to be invalid if the parcel characteristics that determine property values also influence the government's decision about how to implement regulations. We use Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to study the effect of the Portland, Oregon, Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) on property values. RDD provides an unbiased estimate of the treatment effect under relatively mild conditions and is well-suited to our application because the UGB defines a sharp treatment threshold. We find a price differential on the western and southern sides of the Portland metropolitan area ranging from $30,000 to at least $140,000, but no price differential on the eastern side. Support for Measure 37 was fueled by price differences such as these among parcels subject to different regulations, but one must be careful not to view current price differentials as evidence that regulations have reduced property values.

The Effect of Land Use Regulation on Housing Price and Informality: A Model Applied to Curitiba, Brazil

This study examines the relationship between land use regulation, housing price, and informality, in the metropolitan area of Curitiba, Brazil. Using a simultaneous equation model, the study conducts a spatial regression analysis to understand the magnitude of the effect of urban regulation on formal housing price and the effect of rising formal housing price on the quantity of informal housing.The study finds that for three regulatory variables – minimum plot area, minimum front setback and minimum frontage – land use regulations that limit the density of occupation have a significant positive effect on price. Regulatory variables that affect building height – maximum number of floors and floor-to-area ratio – have the opposite effect, possibly because single and multifamily units are not being analyzed separately. The study also finds that the price of formal housing has a negative effect on the quantity of informal housing in the same location, but this effect turns positive in the adjacent and more distant locations. As expected, the rise in formal housing price in one locality pushes people to the informal sector in more distant neighborhoods. However, in the same locality, a rise in price decreases the quantity of informal housing. The results indicate that high priced areas act as a bar to the development of the informal sector in the same locality, while the informal sector is pushed to the outskirts of the city.

Exploring the Influence of Urban Form on Work Travel Behavior with Agent-Based Modeling

This paper examines the effect of land use regulations on travel behavior by using agent-based modeling. A simulation model for a hypothetical urban area loosely based on the Chicago, Illinois, metropolitan area was used to study the impact of six land use regulation scenarios on transit use and urban form. The key features and techniques of the model development and the scenarios tested are described. The results from the simulations showed that although the land use regulations that were designed to increase the density near the transit station or in and near the urban core were able to achieve the intended land use patterns, they did not increase the transit mode share for the region in a significant manner. More detailed examination of the output revealed that as long as the rules for mode choice, the distribution of employment, and the transit network remained unchanged, land use regulations that affect residential locations produced limited effects on transit use.

The effect of land use regulation on housing and land prices

This paper investigates the effects of land use regulation restrictiveness on house and vacant land prices. In contrast to prior studies, the index of restrictiveness is treated as an endogenous variable and estimated effects are allowed to vary by market setting. Using data on more than 100 Florida cities, greater regulation restrictiveness is found to increase house price and decrease land price. Evidence is also provided showing that more restrictiveness increases the size of newly constructed homes.

An Evaluation of Urban Land Use Regulations from View of Urban Surface Albedo

abstractUrban surface albedo, which is one of the important factors of the urban heat island phenomenon, was used to evaluate urban land use regulations. Broadband albedo at the surface level of Sakai City, Japan, was calculated, and effects of land use regulations and actual land use were estimated using satellite remote sensing data, a land use regulation map and detailed digital information expressing actual land use. Land use regulations define land use, maximum building coverage ratios and maximum floor area ratios, which relate the heights of buildings to the areas of their sites. These factors have effects upon broadband albedo and each narrowband albedo corresponding to wavelengths observed by Landsat ETM+. Albedo values differed according to land use regulation zones. The combination of land use regulation and actual land use is also meaningful in grasping urban surface albedo. But this relationship may provide only slight insight into the urban heat island phenomenon.

The Investment Incentive Effects of Land Use Regulations

This paper provides an overview and synthesis of the results from recent studies of how different types of land use regulations affect land development incentives. The presentation is nontechnical and focuses on uncovering general principles for the dynamic effects of such policies. It explains why the risk of regulation leads to faster development of unregulated land and how the effect on structural densities reflects the underlying pattern of growth in the demand for land by competing uses. It also discusses how the general pattern of timing and density responses for regulated property reflect the same growth patterns in demand.