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Keywords Participating Organizations Report Details Summary This paper demonstrates that property values can recover through time near hazardous waste sites because changes in perceptions that the site is cleaned up. Although the Operating Industries Inc. landfill is still a dominant visual presence in Monterey Park and Montebello, California, recent property sales data show a marked increase in both sales activity and sales prices compared to when the site was being added to the National Priority List. There is no longer a pronounced signal relating a home's proximity to the site and a lower sales price. In this paper the authors also revise the property value models used previously to estimate welfare losses. The model refinements led to an upward revision in the magnitude of losses sustained throughout the community, losses that the authors estimated as 19% of average sales price. Compared with the losses estimated for the mid-1980s. and after correcting for overall housing price changes in the Los Angeles area, the authors estimate an overall increase in property values in the area closest to the site (within 1.5 miles) at $22 million.
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