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Abstract
Though the history of environmental policy in the United States is relatively short, it has become one of today's primary topics. Prior to the 1970s, the use of caustic chemicals and environmental pollutants was largely unregulated. Factories deposited waste in rivers and lakes and buried it underground.
Over the past thirty years, however, public outcry has resulted in laws requiring stiff penalties for polluters and caused legislatures to create policies designed to restore contaminated sites to productive re-use. The most effective remediation policy currently in use is widely thought to be the voluntary cleanup programs. An integral component of these programs is the use of deed restrictions to notify future owners of the site's past use.
The purpose of this dissertation is to gather information on a site's remediation history and to determine if knowledge of participation affects the location decision of homebuyers or results in discounted transactions. This study uses three case studies located in Chicago, providing a comprehensive examination of the individual contamination issues and redevelopment scenarios for each one. The owners of the remediated sites were interviewed in order to assess their knowledge of the site's history and their tolerance for specific contaminates. This procedure establishes the “stated preferences” of the respondents.
Sales data are then analyzed using multiple regression in order to determine if the owner's “stated preferences” are the same as their “revealed preferences” for housing built on remediated land. “Revealed preferences” are studied to determine if the owner's do what they say they will do. The contingent valuation surveys are analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical procedures.
While the findings of this dissertation do show that stated preferences and revealed preferences are comparable, it indicates that deed restrictions are an ineffective method of notifying residential property owners of a site's past use. It shows that current owners do not know of their site's history, and may not have purchased their home if they did know. In addition, this dissertation uses contingent valuation data showing the potential for a clear reduction in market participants for housing built on remediated land.
