Rezoning Decisions Associated with Housing Price, Land Use Plan, and Urban Sprawl: Empirical Estimations

Under the theme of ¨DRezoning Decisions Associated with Housing Price, Land Use Plan, and Urban Sprawl: Empirical Estimations¡¬, this thesis consists of two research with two related topics. The first part analyzes the dynamics of zoning structure and accommodates the neighborhood spillover effects associated with the real estate market, focusing particularly neighborhood spillover effects between rezoning of vacant parcels and housing price. It is found that the price of a house is positively influenced by the prices of other houses in its neighborhood but the rezoning status of a vacant parcel in a neighboring location plays an insignificant role in explaining the price of a house. The contrasting results of neighborhood spillover effects between rezoning and housing price clarify the direction of association between rezoning and housing price. The second part examines whether the manipulation of land use plan influences spatial development patterns in Knoxville area. It is hypothesized that rezoning approvals from undevelopable land classifications to developable land classifications are affected by the area currently designated for agricultural-rural residential use. The results show that the average distances between the closest parcels identified as preexisting development and parcels predicted to be approved for developable land classification drop under the hypothetical land use plan scenarios with expanded area designated for agricultural-rural residential use. The drops of the average distances are due to the increases in the frequency of denials of rezoning petitions for development in the area expanded for agricultural-rural residential uses. These results indicate that a manipulation of agricultural-rural residential use areas encourages rezoning for development closer to the area of preexisting development, and thereby reduces urban sprawl.