The price of urban and suburban land in most of
the Western World has been increasing at a particularly-rapid rate. In fact, land value increases appear to be
consistenty and disproportionately greater than the
rise in either general consumer prices or costs of residential construction. Raw land values are an important
element influencing both the quality and quantity of
housing made available, and as such, constitute a relevant social concern. Furthermore, land values, to a
certain extent dictate the type of development that an
urban area undergoes.
Land speculators have frequently been blamed for
causing, or at least contributing to, not only these price
increases but also the sprawl-like, pattern of development
so often associated with urban peripheral areas. This thesis attempts to test the validity of these claims
by analyzing data from a specific inter-temporal study
of land uses price changes and land values in an urban
fringe environment.
The community selected for this study was the
Municipality of Saanich, which is located immediately
north of the City of Victoria, British Columbia. Over
2600 separate properties were sampled, with considerable
amounts of data for each – including such inputs as the
changing selling prices, holding periods and development
information -- that were obtained through the municipal
assessment roles and the searching of titles in the land
registry office. The time horizon selected was 21 years
(1949-1970) in order to encompass several stages of business activity. A special computer program using elements
of multi-variate analysis assembled the various inputs
into a workable format, whence portions of the data could
be further analyzed and compared.
It is suggested that the level of transactions and
the increasing average raw land values have been influenced
by both public and private actions in response to the continuing urbanization of the Victoria area. This study further contends that land speculation per se has not
exerted a significant influence either on land prices
or on the actual pattern of development in the study area.
Population pressures and rising levels of per capita
incomes are suggested as being factors of more significance in this context. / Business, Sauder School of / Real Estate Division / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/41886 |
| Date | January 1971 |
| Creators | Kropinski, George Michael |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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