With the number of community cell tower construction/placement controversies growing in the United States, you'd think that by now there would be some sort of analysis of the impact of cell towers on residential property values in the U.S.
There is an interesting British study about residential property values and power lines, and it suggests what you might expect: those closest, and with greatest view, of the powerline structure see a price reduction of up to 20% over similar residential properties in the same area that are over 400 meters away from such structures. How that applies to cell tower impact over residential properties is unknown.
The Canadian Review of their National Antenna Tower Policy was charged to determine if there was evidence exists that property values are impacted by the placement of antenna towers. Results are mixed:
Evidence of Antenna Towers’ Impact upon House Sales Transactions
The most reliable evidence of the value of land is its market value as determined by the price that a willing purchaser is willing to pay to a willing vendor in a free market. Some research completed recently in New Zealand has used actual sales transaction data to attempt to determine whether market price was negatively impacted by the presence of cellular base stations. Dr. Sandy Bond of the Department of Property at the University of Auckland, in collaboration with colleagues Karen Beamish (2004) (Footnote 338) and Ko-Kang Wang (2004), (Footnote 339) has conducted two parallel studies about the effects of cell tower placement on local property values. As the principal research activity, case studies were performed in four suburbs of Christchurch, New Zealand where a cellular base station had been established. Survey data was collected on people’s perceptions about the impact of the base station on their property value and, most importantly, that data was combined with actual housing price changes over time. Changes were determined using a hedonic house price approach. (Footnote 340) The hypothesis of this research was:
In suburbs where there is a CPBS [cell phone base station] constructed, it will be possible to observe that discounts are made to the selling price of homes located near these structures.
The survey data indicated that a major concern of people living proximately to a cell tower was the effect of this tower on property values - a third of the respondents believed it would decrease the price or rent they would be prepared to pay by between 1 to 9% and nearly a quarter (24%) indicated that they believed it would decrease the price or rent by between 10 and 19%. The findings of the market study of actual home prices confirmed the opinion survey results. In the two suburbs studied where towers were built in 2000, the effect of a tower on home prices was a decrease of between 20.7% and 21%. Interestingly, in the two suburbs where the towers were constructed in 1994, the effect was either insignificant or prices actually increased by 12% due to the presence of the tower. A possible explanation for this difference was the significantly increased media coverage and public controversy that surrounded the most recent tower placements in the study. Also, two high profile legal cases, involving cell towers, were decided after 1994 when the two earlier base stations were established. (Footnote 341)
Why do I say the results were mixed? Because here's their conclusion:
Recommendation 34: That the impact (positive or negative) that an proposed antenna installation may have upon the property values of particular parcels of land should not be the subject of an antenna consultation.
Generally, land-use planning authorities are not required to take such impacts into account when siting urban and rural infrastructure that concerned members of the public may find objectionable. Almost every planning decision will produce positive and negative impacts upon the value of land located in the immediate vicinity.
