Text

theses

Farmers often oppose large-lot zoning because they believe it will reduce the value of their land. Non-farm homeowners frequently support such zoning because they believe that minimum lot size restrictions will postpone development and preserve “rural character.” Planners, meanwhile, worry that if development does occur, minimum lot size restrictions will create an environmentally harmful landscape consisting of houses on large lots that are widely separated by expanses of manicured lawn. This latter outcome is one definition of urban sprawl. It is a potential unintended consequence of a local land use policy that is otherwise quite popular. Because of the controversy that surrounds local zoning policies, all of these hypothesized effects of large-lot zoning are worth exploring empirically. Agricultural and resource economists have written on this subject, but they tend to lack zoning and landscape data that are sufficiently detailed to explore the policy questions of interest. Using a detailed GIS dataset of 83 municipalities in the New Jersey Highlands, the current thesis estimates the effect of actual minimum lot size in each zone (half-acre, one acre, etc.) on the number of acres converted from forest, grassland, or farmland to residential landscapes (structures and adjoining lawns) between the years 1995 and 2002. While this thesis does not formally adjust for selection bias in the zoning treatment, preliminary analysis of covariate balance suggests that a simple regression approach might be adequate for causal analysis, at least for this dataset. The results of the simple regression analysis of the effects of minimum lot size alongside other growth drivers suggest that minimum lot size imposition as a policy tool works as intended.

ETD_8476

M.S.

Includes bibliographical references

by Megan Lubeck

doi:10.7282/T3JD50X6

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.