An Evaluation of Landscape Improvement Benefits for Unoccupied Open Spaces
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Kao, Li-Ling
Abstract
To promote urban regeneration, recently, provision of temporary or permanent public open spaces has been adopted by many overseas cities through greening and beautification on spaces resulted from the removal of dilapidated buildings. In Taipei, due to restrictions of urban renewal regulations, dilapidated and abandoned buildings are kept to secure floor area bonus for future redevelopment. Most of them are of no value to qualify for historic heritage, they do hurt the city image and even cause society problem. To prepare for the 2010 Taipei International Flora Exposition, the Taipei City Government promoted a series of actions, the so-called “Taipei Beautiful Program”, to improve city landscape. Among various actions, serious 2 provided incentives to encourage landowners to remove dilapidated buildings and to serve as temporary open space through greening and beautification. However, the temporary open space was criticized as "fake park" of no public interest and over-offered incentive. In order to respond to the social dispute, development of an evaluation system to assess the value of landscape improvement is critically needed. Through development of theoretic evaluation system and case study, the purpose of this study is to analyze the content of public interest and to estimate the economic value for the environmental improvement program, including removal of dilapidated and abandoned buildings, implementation of greening and beautification and provision of temporary public open spaces.
Four temporary grasslands located on Roosevelt Road in Taipei are included for the case study. Firstly, evaluation indicators of landscape improvement on temporary open spaces are identified. Then, research method of importance-performance analysis and willing to pay are applied to evaluate environmental functions, user demand, user satisfaction, willingness to pay against user''s characteristics for landscape improvement actions.
Nearby residents and local users are targeted in this questionnaire survey. Important research findings include:
(a) The nearby residents are pleased to welcome the temporary public open spaces program since it can improve public security and quality of life and amenity. However, passing pedestrians welcome the program since it enriches green environment and ecological diversity.
(b) Among the user''s properties, it is found that respondents with high personal monthly income and high usage frequency are willing to pay more for the temporary environmental improvement. Also, property owners in surrounding areas are willing to pay price higher than non-estate owners for 4 to 5 times.
(c) Based on the neighborhood’s evening population and the daytime passing people, the environmental value for the landscape improvement of four sites are estimated to produce direct use value for NT $ 436,716,703, indirect use value for NT $ 16,643,872, totally NT$ 453,360,575. The average amount of willingness to pay for per person is NT $ 3,076.
(d) Through regression analysis, it is found that real estate owners in the surrounding areas, residents living nearby, personal monthly income, and satisfaction are the key factors significantly influence the amount of willingness to pay.
In summary, it is found that Taipei City Government’s landscape improvement program, provision of temporary open space by removing the dilapidated buildings and space greening, is highly appreciated by the nearby residents and passing pedestrians. This may be a positive signal to other local governments interested in similar actions. In the future, methodological improvement for environmental value estimation and evaluation for different types of temporary landscape improvement should be further studied. In addition, community participation for the maintenance of existing temporary open space and feasibility to become permanent parks are suggested to pursue permanent environmental improvements.
Four temporary grasslands located on Roosevelt Road in Taipei are included for the case study. Firstly, evaluation indicators of landscape improvement on temporary open spaces are identified. Then, research method of importance-performance analysis and willing to pay are applied to evaluate environmental functions, user demand, user satisfaction, willingness to pay against user''s characteristics for landscape improvement actions.
Nearby residents and local users are targeted in this questionnaire survey. Important research findings include:
(a) The nearby residents are pleased to welcome the temporary public open spaces program since it can improve public security and quality of life and amenity. However, passing pedestrians welcome the program since it enriches green environment and ecological diversity.
(b) Among the user''s properties, it is found that respondents with high personal monthly income and high usage frequency are willing to pay more for the temporary environmental improvement. Also, property owners in surrounding areas are willing to pay price higher than non-estate owners for 4 to 5 times.
(c) Based on the neighborhood’s evening population and the daytime passing people, the environmental value for the landscape improvement of four sites are estimated to produce direct use value for NT $ 436,716,703, indirect use value for NT $ 16,643,872, totally NT$ 453,360,575. The average amount of willingness to pay for per person is NT $ 3,076.
(d) Through regression analysis, it is found that real estate owners in the surrounding areas, residents living nearby, personal monthly income, and satisfaction are the key factors significantly influence the amount of willingness to pay.
In summary, it is found that Taipei City Government’s landscape improvement program, provision of temporary open space by removing the dilapidated buildings and space greening, is highly appreciated by the nearby residents and passing pedestrians. This may be a positive signal to other local governments interested in similar actions. In the future, methodological improvement for environmental value estimation and evaluation for different types of temporary landscape improvement should be further studied. In addition, community participation for the maintenance of existing temporary open space and feasibility to become permanent parks are suggested to pursue permanent environmental improvements.
Subjects
private open space
temporary grassland
landscape improvement
willingness to pay
Importance-Performance Analysis
Type
thesis
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Loading...
Name
index.html
Size
23.49 KB
Format
HTML
Checksum
(MD5):44bf980aec2cfaad969905929fd0c3fb