Watershed Development Restrictions And Land Prices

The State of North Carolina's Water Supply Watershed Protection Act of 1989 required local governments to adopt land use measures in watersheds to protect the water supply emanating from the watersheds. Watershed protection ordinances often contain minimum lot size restrictions that constrain development density in the watershed. We examine vacant land prices in Buncombe County's Ivy River Watershed at the time such a regulation took effect: two-acre minimum lot sizes were mandated inside the watershed. Our results suggest that costs of watershed development restrictions are borne primarily by those vacant land owners in the watershed for whom the development restrictions make land subdivision infeasible.