Property‐Value Guarantees for Waste Facilities

Abstract

Property‐value guarantees eliminate value losses to property owners near waste‐disposal facility sites. In theory, guaranteeing property values is a simple method of summarily addressing waste‐facility impacts and, hence, of gaining host‐community acceptance for undesirable waste facilities. Representative surveys were conducted among residents of host and control communities at a landfill and an incinerator site to test whether property‐value impacts were considered significant and to determine the effect of property‐value guarantees on host‐community acceptance. Property‐value losses are a significant concern, and 50% of the respondents do not consider property‐value guarantees fair compensation for hosting an intolerable waste facility. Moreover, property‐value guarantees are significantly less acceptable among concerned residents than among less concerned people at a new incinerator site. Therefore, property‐value guarantees are not very effective in addressing residents' concerns about waste‐facility impacts. An alternative approach to gaining acceptance is derived that consists of identifying and reducing the cause for specific impacts in kind and as close as possible to the waste‐generating source.