| Response
to “Environmental Regulations and the Housing Market:
A Review of the Literature” by Katherine A. Kiel
David Sunding
University of California, Berkeley
Environmental regulation is a significant hurdle in the development
process, as well as a
major part of national efforts to protect biodiversity, environmental
amenities, and other
landscape features, such as wetlands. Governments at all levels
routinely conduct environmental
reviews of proposed projects to ensure that development is
compatible with environmental
protection or, at least, that economic and environmental objectives
are balanced in some
fashion. Interestingly, federal environmental agencies have
assumed an increasingly important
role in oversight of land use changes, an area traditionally
reserved for local governments.
Professor Kiel does a good job at surveying an area that
has, by all accounts, received inadequate
attention by economists. I do not disagree with many of her
conclusions. In this discussion,
however, I would like to add some additional information that
bears on several of
the points raised in her article and also suggest ways of
considering how environmental
regulation impacts housing projects and who bears the cost
of protecting environmental
amenities.
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