Disentangling Access and View Amenities in Access-Restricted Coastal Residential Communities

In coastal communities with uniform flood risk, amenity value is comprised of two components – view and access. Having controlled for view, it is assumed that any residual amenity value represents the benefit derived from accessing the beach for leisure/recreational purposes. However, as properties closer to the beach typically have improved viewsheds, the two amenities are highly correlated, and disentangling view and access is problematical. A spatial autoregressive hedonic model captures ease of beach access via a network distance parameter that varies independently from property viewshed, collinearity effects are mitigated, and access and view can be disentangled.beach access, property viewshed, spatial hedonic model, willingness to pay, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Q51, R12, R21, R23,

Disentangling Access and View Amenities in Access-restricted Coastal Residential Communities

In small coastal communities with uniform flood risk, amenity value is comprised of two components – view and access. Having controlled for view, it is assumed that any residual amenity value represents the benefit derived from households from accessing the beach for leisure or recreational purposes. However, as properties closer to the beach typically have improved viewsheds, the two amenities are highly correlated, and disentangling view and access is problematical. We posit that for many coastal communities, access is restricted to designated public access points, precluding local residents from accessing the beach area directly from their property. To appropriately account for restricted access, we incorporate a network distance access measure into a spatial autoregressive hedonic model to capture ease of beach access for local residents. Our findings suggest that, as network distance varies independently from property viewshed, collinearity effects are mitigated, and access and view can be disentangled. Key Words:

There’s More That Binds Us Together Than Separates Us : Exploring the Role of Prison-University Partnerships in Promoting Democratic Dialogue, Transformative Learning Opportunities and Social Citizenship

In this paper we argue that education – particularly higher education (HE) - has the potential to offer socially, economically and culturally transformative learning opportunities–cornerstones of social citizenship. Yet, for prisoners, the opportunity to engage in HE as active citizens is often limited. Using a Freirean model of democratic, pedagogic participatory dialogue, we designed a distinctive prison-University partnership in which prison-based learners and undergraduate students studied together. The parallel small-scale ethnographic study, reported here, explored how stereotypes and ‘Othering’ - which compromise social citizenship - could be challenged through dialogue and debate. Evidence from this study revealed a positive change in ‘de-othering’ attitudes of participants was achieved. Furthermore, participants reported growth in their sense of empowerment, agency, and autonomy–cornerstones of social citizenship. Findings from this study contribute further evidence to the developing body of knowledge on the value of partnerships and dialogue in prison education. We conclude that policy makers, and respective institutions, need to work harder to establish prison-University partnerships, thus providing the space for real talk to take place

Estimating a Payment Vehicle for Financing Nourishment of Residential Beaches using a Spatial-lag Hedonic Property Price Model

Beach nourishment projects are common methods for coastal states to protect beaches and property from the natural erosive process. However, while the beneficiaries of beach nourishment tend to be local property owners and recreators, projects are typically funded at the state level. Based on the benefit principle, as local residents receive more of the erosion protection benefits of the nourishment projects, we estimate a value capture tax, designed to levy the financing burden in a manner that approximates the distribution of benefits. The benefits of nourishment projects to coastal property owners are estimated using the results from a spatial-lag hedonic model that controls for viewshed effects. Key Words:

Gulf Views: Toward a Better Understanding of Viewshed Scope in Hedonic Property Models

This study examines the influence of Gulf of Mexico views on residential home sales prices in Pinellas County, Florida. We utilize Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) data to construct four continuous measures of Gulf of Mexico views – the total view, the maximum view segment, the mean view segment, and proximity to view content. Our results illustrate that residential property owners have a higher marginal willingness-to-pay for larger total views and larger continuous view segments. Results also indicate that the proximity of homes to the view content influences view valuations. Key Words:

Water Quality and Residential Property Values: A Natural Experiment Approach

We use hedonic techniques to measure the impact of improved water quality on inland real estate values. By considering a unique natural experiment setting where consistent and recognizable variation in water quality across two rivers within a small geographic area is well known to market participants, we avoid the major problems inherent in hedonic water quality studies. Controlling for spatial autocorrelation, results show that land and property values increase more substantially with proximity to the non-contaminated river as opposed to the mercurycontaminated river that carries a fish consumption advisory. Results suggest that the value of improving water quality to a level that will remove the advisory is between $7.3 and$12 million. Key Words:

Use of high-intensity data to define large river management units: A case study on the lower Waikato River, New Zealand

The importance of environmental heterogeneity in lotic ecosystems is well recognised in river management, and continues to underpin studies of hierarchical patch dynamics, geomorphology and landscape ecology. We evaluated how physical characteristics and water chemistry measurements at high spatiotemporal resolution define channel units of potential ecological importance along 134 km of the lower Waikato River in North Island, New Zealand. We used multivariate hierarchical clustering to classify river reaches in an a priori unstructured manner based on (i) high-frequency, along-river water quality measurements collected in four seasons and (ii) river channel morphology data resolved from aerial photos for 1-km long reaches. Patterns of channel character were shaped by the depth and lateral complexity of constituent river reaches, while water quality patterns were represented by differences in clarity, chlorophyll fluorescence and specific conductance driven by tributary inflows in the mid-section of the river and tidal cycles in the lower section. Management units defined by physical characteristics or water quality did not necessarily align with boundaries typically reflecting clinal processes (e.g. tidal influence) or geomorphic, network or anthropogenic discontinuities. The results highlight the dynamic spatial and temporal properties of large rivers and the need to define clear objectives when deriving spatial units for management and research. Given that actions and targets for physical channel and water quality management may differ, the spatial extent identified for each of these does not necessarily need to directly coincide, although both should be considered in decision making and experimental design