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Keywords Property, Positioning, Values, Electricity industry
Abstract The impact of power transmission lines on property values remains insufficiently explored and inconclusively theorised This paper provides a platform for examining what appears to be a general phenomenon of price depreciation of land abutting power fines. A large scale international literature review is organised in terms of a thematic model as a prelude to a precis of key papers discussing the power line/property value nexus. Broadening the account, attention turns to the issue of stigma which has different manifestations from its normal context involving contaminated lands. In order to advance theoretical understanding, a speculative model is provided of the stigma apparently attaching to power lines and attendant installations.
Introduction
Despite successive studies over the 1990s, the impact of high voltage overhead transmission lines (HVOTLs) on property values remains insufficiently explored and inconclusively theorised. Understanding the impact is important to electricity suppliers in planning routes and determining fair compensation in cases of full or partial resumption of private land. Those affected by the establishment or extension of transmission infrastructure also want greater certainty about the process and outcomes and how their economic or domestic operations are likely to be affected. Years of international practice in compensation raise the issue of the exact nature of the affliction created by power lines and equipment. Proceeding beyond the existing literature, we explore this question via some initial speculation as to the constituents of stigma, a theme not specifically addressed or categorised in previous investigations.
The scope of this paper is thus quite broad. It first sets out a conceptual framework including a generic model within which studies of power line impact can be assessed. Next, it undertakes a detailed international review of literature analysing from a real estate viewpoint the elements of power transmission. This step leads to an account of the relationship of HVOTLs and property values. Numerous instances of ex-post depreciation prompt the need for a clearer interpretation of stigma in the power line context. The final section handles this task.
The relevance of this work is evident in that it was undertaken as consulting for a major electricity supplier.
Conceptual framework
While one might occasionally see a sympathetic painting or an artistic photograph of power...