Book Review: Towers, Turbines and Transmission Lines: Impacts on Property Value

Introduction

Opponents of wind farms and other contested infrastructure developments often base their arguments against such developments in terms of impacts on, for example, landscape aesthetics, tourism potential, health concerns and property values in the areas surrounding such developments. With regard to the latter, there is a relatively small evidence base on which to judge the potential impacts on property prices of electricity transmission lines, mobile phone towers and wind turbines. Often such research is conducted (or funded) by those on opposite sides of the argument, and is invariably published without academic peer-review, prompting often hotly contested debates and critiques of different aspects of study design. This fuels even more uncertainty at local levels which in turn suggests that there is a real need for an objective review of the current state of knowledge regarding the impact of such developments on property values. This then is an extremely timely book which draws on studies from the USA, the UK, Australia and New Zealand to highlight the types of tools that are available to property appraisers/valuers to enable such effects to be identified and for the quality of valuations to be improved. To date such research has involved a variety of methodological approaches but usually includes the use of hedonic modelling approaches in order to quantify impacts on house price sales. One of the stated aims of the book (p. 7) is in ‘supporting practitioners and property students to recognise the issues identified and to respond in an appropriate way to provide a professional service to their clients’. In order to help address such aims the authors have provided guidance throughout the book which should go some way to filling existing gaps in the literature.