Abstract:
Urban open spaces and public recreation lands enhance the environment, economy and quality of
life in cities by improving air quality, providing recreational opportunities, and enhancing
aesthetic values, among many other benefits. Development decisions in the Dhaka city frequently
fail to consider the values of such open spaces. As a result, development occurs in ways that
greatly reduce or destroys these open spaces with negative environmental, economic, and social
consequences. This study only concerns with the valuation of open spaces specially parks and
water bodies of different urban residential neighborhoods of Dhaka city in Economic terms.
The real estate is one of the vital catalysts for a country’s economy as urban land value is
determinative in both urban planning and real estate activities in economies of today’s world.
Within the context of the economic valuation of open space, the presence and absence of open
space has an effect on the residential property value in Dhaka is assumed and verified. Together
with a set of structural, location and socio-economic variables use to explain residential property
prices; the study focuses on three amenity or environmental variables which include the existence
of views of park or lake, the distance from the housing unit to the nearest open space, and the size
of that open space. To analyze the impact of open space attributes on real price of residential
properties, an empirical analysis is carried out by employing Hedonic Price Method (HPM). The
regression analysis results from the first stage hedonic estimation reveal that homebuyers are
willing to pay only for scenic views and living in the closest proximity to open spaces especially
as parks and lakes for both owned and rental houses.
This study estimates that the presence of open space views increase the house price on an average
14% of actual price for owner occupied houses and increase the rent price on an average 12%
supplementary for rental houses. In the same way, distance from the house to the nearest park is
negatively related to the house price. This indicates the marginal implicit price for owner occupied
houses increase 5.3%, by reducing the distance between a house and the closest open space by
100ft. In contrast empirical results for proximity to open spaces for rental houses and the size of
the nearest open space for both owned and rental houses do not show a statistical significant
relationship on nearby property values. As in Dhaka supply of open space is far short of demand
therefore less choice makes it difficult to clearly determine the value of property due to the size of
nearby open space. This estimated valuation of open spaces and their amenity benefits will be
useful in urban design, land use planning and open space preservation decision making.
