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each of nine landfills. Then they compared that to the rate of property development for four control areas, the centers of which were randomly selected at the edge of a circle lying three miles from each landfill.
The researchers found less development growth near the larger landfills but no conclusive evidence that
the landfill sites had any adverse impact on the rate of property development in surrounding areas.
In the second part of the study, researchers tried to define the characteristics which determine a property’s sale price. Distance from a
landfill was one of the factors examined. They found that property characteristics other than distance to the landfill appear much more important in explaining prices.
Priority considerations of buyers generally relate to the structure, specifically the age, size and construction of the house, rather than miles to a landfill, and it is those priority considerations that have a greater bearing on market value.
Even in cases where distance to a disposal site would weigh heavily in the equation, they concluded that the real estate market probably had sufficient depth to preclude depreciations of property.
Markets vary widely
However, the Penn State study noted that real estate markets vary from one region to another and even from one year to the next in the same region. In addition, the researchers pointed out that landfills themselves have variable characteristics, including age, size and visibility.
Market differences and landfill variations make it difficult to extrapolate findings from one study to predict what will happen to land values somewhere else when a solid waste disposal facility is established, the researchers noted.
85.6%