Economic Impact of a Heritage Policy on Residential Property Values in a Historic District Context: The Case of the Old City of Quebec

Abstract

Previous studies have attempted to measure the willingness-to-pay to locate inside a historic district. Yet not enough attention has been paid to the implicit value attributed to the impact of heritage policies within the historic district. This paper fills that gap by investigating the impact of such policies on individual condominium properties for the case of the Old City of Quebec (Canada), designated by law as a protected area and included on the World Heritage List (UNESCO). More precisely, this research measures the impacts of the reorganization and landscaping of one particular street located south-west of the protection area in the old part of Quebec City. A difference-in-differences (DID) estimator based on a hedonic repeated sales approach is proposed to isolate such effects based on proximity to the site under study. Estimation results suggest that the reorganization of the street had no significant impact on the closest properties’ prices, but had negative effects for properties located within 150 to 450 meters of the street. These observations outline complex relations between heritage policies and urban landscaping projects.