A month after foes of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline issued an economic study showing that the natural gas pipeline would diminish property values along the proposed 550-mile route by $141 million, Dominion Energy has fired back by citing a study claiming that gas pipelines have no impact on residential property values at all.
Analyzing property values in communities in Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania, the report determined that “there is no measurable impact on the sales price of properties located along or in proximity to a natural gas pipeline versus properties which are not located along or in proximity to the same pipeline.”
“These findings might help property owners feel more confident about natural gas pipelines proposed in their communities,” said Don Santa, CEO of the INGAA Foundation in a press release. The foundation is associated with the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. The bulk of the analysis was conducted by Integra Realty Resources.
The study identified residential neighborhoods that were bordered or bisected by at least one pipeline and compared 200 home sales of similar properties both on and off the pipelines. Study areas included suburban communities outside Cincinnati, Ohio, a rural neighborhood in Clinton, N.J., a master-planned residential community in Prince William County, Va., a suburb outside Jackson, Miss., and a small town subdivision in Dallastown, Pa. Houses were “normalized” by adjusting for gross living area, size, age and other factors.
The INGAA study employed a methodology that compared actual home sales. By contrast, the Key-Log Economics study underwritten by pipeline foes calculated the loss of what it called “ecosystem service values,” which incorporated such intangibles as the loss of viewsheds, air quality and protection from extreme events. Key-Log obtained its per-acre values primarily from a database of more than 1,300 estimates compiled as part of a global study known as “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity.”
Your assignment: compare and contrast the merits of the two reports.
Pipeline Impact to Property Value and Property Insurability, INGAA Foundation
Economic Costs of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Key-Log Economics
— JAB
