Measuring the value of public hunting land using a hedonic approach

ABSTRACT

Acquisition of public land is critical for wildlife conservation and can impact local tax bases and property values. Those impacts reflect the capitalized value of benefits (e.g., recreational opportunities) and costs (e.g., nuisance wildlife) of living near protected areas. We employed the hedonic price framework to determine how proximity and adjacency to public hunting land in North Carolina were capitalized into housing prices. We modeled sale price as the composite value of structural, neighborhood, and environmental characteristics. Proximity to public hunting land had positive effects on sale price in some locations, whereas adjacency had negative effects in some locations. These relationships were dependent on the sociocultural context of the public hunting land, including proximity to other forms of public land. This research may help facilitate negotiations among stakeholders impacted by protected areas, including land dedicated to wildlife-based recreation.

KEYWORDS:

• Hedonic valuation
• hunting
• public land
• protected areas

Acknowledgments

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program, and North Carolina State University funded this research. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and contributions to this manuscript.

Notes

¹ Data provided by Zillow through the Zillow Transaction and Assessment Dataset (ZTRAX). More information on accessing the data can be found at http://www.zillow.com/ztrax. The results and opinions are those of the authors and do not reflect the position of Zillow Group.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission [Cooperative Agreement DELM-0001].