Grantee Research Project Results
2003 Progress Report: Urban Regeneration through Environmental Remediation: Valuing Market Based Incentives for Brownfields Development
EPA Grant Number: R829607Title: Urban Regeneration through Environmental Remediation: Valuing Market Based Incentives for Brownfields Development
Investigators: Meyer, Peter B. , Wernstedt, Kris , Alberini, Anna
Current Investigators: Meyer, Peter B. , Wernstedt, Kris , Alberini, Anna , Heberle, Lauren
Institution: University of Louisville
Current Institution: University of Louisville , Resources for the Future , University of Maryland - College Park
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: March 1, 2002 through February 29, 2004
Project Period Covered by this Report: March 1, 2003 through February 29, 2004
Project Amount: $277,388
RFA: Market Mechanisms and Incentives for Environmental Management (2001) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Environmental Justice
Objective:
The objective of this research project is to examine the relative importance to developers of different market-based mechanisms and other incentives for promoting the remediation and reuse of brownfields (previously used and potentially contaminated urban sites). This objective has not changed, except that we have slightly expanded efforts to determine the extent to which developer rankings of different incentives and investment conditions are misperceived by public officials.
Progress Summary:
A developer survey instrument, pretesting with individual developers, both face-to-face and with mail instrument administration, and further revisions were conducted in summer 2003. The final survey format was a 16-page bound 8½ x 11 brochure, with illustrations. There were 64 different instruments, 2 sets of 32, 1 set for each of 2 different real estate market conditions, with each of the 32 instrument versions displaying 5 different pairs of conjoint choices on brownfield incentives offered to developers.
The survey was administered to 2,600 members of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a sampling frame provided by the ULI to target developers in their membership. Although the ULI provided a longer list of members, care had to be taken not to survey multiple individuals from the same firm with the same decisionmaking logic (and with the confusion that different versions of the survey arriving at the same address would have caused). This is a problem inherent in using the membership lists of organizations with individual, not institutional, members. A further problem arose with respect to members in different offices of the same development firm, but possibly spanning the nation in their locations. The prospective mailing list was modified using the following protocol:
- For multiple members in the same firm at the same address, we selected only one, trying from any listing of job titles to pick the one with the greatest seniority or most influence over investment project decisionmaking.
- For members in the same firm with multiple addresses, we sent one to each address because investment selection decisions tend to be decentralized in firms with multiple permanent offices, often with each office a separate profit center.
Richard Rosan, President of the ULI, made the initial contact with each prospective respondent, informing members that the survey was coming and encouraging their participation. This was followed by a mailing of the instrument with a cover letter from Peter Meyer, the project principal investigator, with an enclosed postage paid return envelope. Survey administration was initiated in October 2003 and completed in January 2004. In that time period, 314 surveys were returned, a response rate that compares favorably with membership surveys on specialized topics not of interest to all members that are conducted by the ULI.
Data collection from public officials was initiated in June 2004 and continued through the summer as the private developer instrument was refined. The officials were initially identified from economic development agency rosters across states and their number expanded through snowball sampling. Surveys mailed to developers mirrored the Likert questions (dealing with brownfield site characteristics, environmental policy impacts on development, and similar issues) asked of developers to permit direct comparisons. Although the conjoint questions were not administered to public officials, they were asked to rank order a variety of incentives analogous to those in the conjoint forced choices administered to developers. Rather than the 20-30 public official interviews originally envisioned, we surveyed some 100 public officials, although not all responses proved usable.
Data entry on the developers’ survey had to deal with extensive marginal notes from many respondents, information we did not want to lose. All those data were recorded in alphanumeric fields, linked specifically to the question to which the comment appeared to be directed. Additional problems were posed by respondents violating requirements that certain firm “demographics” questions had only one answer, but multiple were offered by the respondents. In this case, a 1-2-3-4-5 coding for the 5 choices, for example, was modified for multiple responses by coding a 13 for both 1 and 3 being selected, or 245 for numbers 2, 4, and 5 being marked as applicable. The numbers of such multiples turned out not to be problematic, but the method was developed when the issue arose in the first 20 responses selected for cross-checking the appropriateness of the coding scheme adopted.
Data reduction and coding occupied much of spring 2004. Although preliminary statistical findings were completed on the developers’ survey by May 1, 2004, the delays in identifying a source of respondents for a survey of developers and in refining the complex set of incentives into a set that could be approximated with conjoint questions meant that the analysis could not be completed within the intended time period.
Central to the survey timing problem was the work cycle of developers over the calendar year. Fall is generally a slow period, and we were advised not to attempt survey administration before Labor Day, at the earliest, with the ideal period roughly from October 1 to Thanksgiving. The instrument was, in fact, delivered in that time period, with a reminder card to nonrespondents mailed in early November. Given available resources and evidence that some developers intended to reply but had misplaced the instrument (calls and e-mails requesting additional copies of the survey), we sent another reminder card before Christmas and delayed initiation of major data entry efforts until mid-January to accommodate late responses—of which we got approximately 20. (It should be noted that those requesting new copies of the survey were sent the same version of the survey that had originally been sent to that person; the random distribution process produced almost identical numbers of each of the different survey instruments in the response set.)
The instrument used for the developers clearly worked and performed as anticipated. No bias towards first or second option in the forced choices was evident, statistically significant results were obtained easily, and findings generally conformed to expectations derived from theory and other empirical data. Two very different products were undertaken and completed about the end of Year 1 of the project: (1) a paper for an academic presentation at a conference in Europe; and (2) a writeup of basic findings for Urban Land, the monthly journal of the ULI, provided in return for the assistance that organization gave the data collection effort.
The major impediment to more rapid exploitation of the data has been scheduling the activities of three different people, all of whom have extensive research commitments other than this project. Vacations also have caused some delay, as has distance, because the principal investigator is not in the same metro area as the other two senior investigators. These are, however, the inevitable costs associated with the benefits to be gained from combining the expertise of different parties to undertake innovative research.
Other issues arose that were associated with the use of conjoint analysis to interpret the decisionmaking of experts and the division of labor necessitated by the distribution of expertise of the researchers, but these issues have not impeded analytical progress, although they may have contributed to delay of the project.
- Use of forced choices by professionals with more expertise in their decision processes than any of the researchers posed problems in instrument design, as well as in interpretation of results. Our ability to interact with ULI personnel helped overcome this difficulty, as did the extensive network of contacts with developers that the principal investigator could employ to get feedback on the test administrations of the instrument.
- The conjoint analysis specialist and the consulting conjoint instrumentation specialist had to deal with policy and investment decisions unlike any they had studied previously. This barrier limited the contribution of the consultant to the instrumentation because his expertise dealt with asking a generalist population about issues with which they might not be familiar. The analysis specialist committed extensive effort learning about the issues and decisionmaking processes in this applied policy arena and thus has played a major constructive role in the analysis as a whole, going well beyond a technical role.
- The lack of experience of the principal investigator with the statistical tools involved in the valuation of different incentives for developers to invest in brownfields led to some confusion in initial instrumentation and design. As the principal investigator learned more about the limitations and capacities of the method, this problem ceased to be a significant issue.
- The divisions of labor associated with the specialist expertise of the researchers and the need for collaboration in data analysis prior to preparation of written and oral products has the inevitable effect of slowing the preparation of elaborations of the initial simple findings.
Overall, the experience with collaboration of the different specialists involved in this project suggests that allowance for additional elapsed time (and possibly more personnel time specifically devoted to the project) should be made for research efforts that rely on a mix of disciplines or types of expertise.
Future Activities:
We will continue analysis, and many more presentations and publications are expected. Four journal articles are anticipated at this time: (1) the results of the ULI survey; (2) a comparison of private developers and public official survey Likerts; (3) a general paper on the incentives that really attract developers; and (4) a paper on the value of incentives, how they vary among developers, and the gaps in perceptions. Given the investigators’ summer schedules, additional analysis and dissemination plans will be made in fall 2004, a period in which the principal investigator has a sabbatical. A book planned for preparation during that leave will utilize some of the project findings in a discussion of development incentives for brownfield revitalization.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 31 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Urban Land Institute, ULI, market-based mechanisms, market incentives, infill, investment, decisionmaking, policymaking, brownfields, brownfield sites, remediation, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Waste, Remediation, Economics, Brownfields, Urban and Regional Planning, Social Science, Market mechanisms, brownfield sites, effects of policy instruments, financial mechanisms, market incentives, market-based mechanisms, urban regeneration, impact of federal policy instruments, policy incentives, policy making, decision making, government intervention, environmental remediation, Brownfield site, community based, socioeconomicsRelevant Websites:
http://cepm.louisville.edu/publications/publications.htm Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.