LEED Public Transportation Accessibility and Its Economic Implications

The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) environmental certification system has developed as a standard for sustainable project planning, though research into its economic impacts have been limited. The main objective of this study is to investigate the economic impacts that two LEED public transportation access (PTA) components, a bus and a light rail system, have on appraised values of land parcels. This study developed a predictive model to quantify the impacts that the two LEED PTA components would have on the appraised unit values of unimproved land parcels. First, a LEED PTA indication map using geographical information system (GIS) was created to randomly select unimproved parcels. Second, the PTA-qualified parcels were selected from the unimproved parcels to use for this study. Lastly, a multiple linear regression method with a one-way ANOVA analysis was performed to predict the unit value of selected parcels by analyzing how the appraised unit value (ft(2)) of parcels was affected by the PTA credits. The results indicate that the two PTA LEED components have a significant impact on the appraised land values, which suggests an economic benefit for adopting the LEED PTA components. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000441. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.