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Title: Price effect of land-use regulation: an event study of the California Coastal Zone Conservation Act

Book ·
OSTI ID:5960655

The passage of the California Coastal Zone Conservation Act (Proposition 20), created regional Coastal Commissions that had veto power over building permits on the coast. The anticipation of restriction in coastal housing construction and the actual regulation by one regional commission, the South Coast Regional Commission, in Los Angeles County, is hypothesized to have impacted the prices of existing single-family houses. An event study methodology is used to construct and test hypotheses of the Commission's price impact. A positive impact on house prices is hypothesized form a combination of the supply restriction and amenity provision activities of the Commission. A negative impact on house price is hypothesized for those houses having the greatest potential for development, whose development was anticipated to have been restricted by the Commission. Results confirm the combined supply/amenity hypothesis and indicate a 6 1/2% price increase associated with the Commission, beginning with the passage of Proposition 20. The development-potential hypothesis was rejected and an alternative hypothesis of a positive impact on high development potential properties accepted. However, it is noted that a sharp decline in the price of high development potential properties occurred during the public debate over proposition 20, which is interpreted as confirmation, within a short-time frame, of the development potential hypothesis.

Research Organization:
University of Southern California, Los Angeles (USA)
OSTI ID:
5960655
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English