Interpretación y Discusión de los resultados

The index approaches the percentage of vacant housing units in a station area from the perspective that these housing units would be seen as desirable for developers and homeowners willing to carry out renovations. Conversely, vacant housing structures can contribute to blight within their proximity, lowering nearby housing values and discouraging investment. The aesthetic quality of a vacant housing unit can go a long way in determining one’s emotional feel towards it.

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7. Station Area Conditions Analysis

This section profiles the development characteristics of each station site included in this study. To the best detail that this information could be acquired, existing and upcoming projects at station sites which affect the character of local neighborhoods near these station sites are discussed. The characteristics of historical development patterns, and how the physical structure of local neighborhoods may affect future development, is also detailed. Much of this conversation is approached in a way which reflects where future housing developments could be sited, particularly in relation to proposed station sites, and how the likelihood of future development occurring will affect the well-being of existing residential neighborhoods. This is all carried out with an eye towards the city’s ability to achieve a 15 percent affordability mandate, given existing and potential future neighborhood conditions.

To guide the content of this section, multiple resources were utilized. Parcel data from the Durham County Office of Tax Administration provided information on dwelling unit figures and land and building values of Durham County parcels, among other attributes. Combined with state of repair assessments of residential properties within a half-mile of station areas carried out in the summer of 2013, this data is depicted as station-level mapping which can help direct how existing conditions may affect future development. This data is not without errors, and thus is not meant to be a definitive accounting of land or building valuations throughout the study area, but as a general tool it can help guide the commentary here. Pertinent data is specified below:

 State of repair assessments: Carried out in the summer of 2013, in my capacity as a research associate at Triangle Transit and in combination with the Durham City-County Planning Department) conducted visual assessments of all residential properties within one half-mile of Durham County station sites. Structures were defined on a scale of unsound, poor, fair, normal, and good. Buildings in normal or good condition were considered to be in optimal condition and not in need of any considerable work if put on the real estate market as is. Buildings in fair condition typically had cosmetic and potential structural issues which could drive down building values, but would otherwise be habitable. Poor and unsound structures require substantial renovation, if they can be salvaged.

 Land and building valuations, and value ratios: Land and building valuations were compared against one another to create a “value ratio”, reflected as the output of a parcel’s land value over its building value. Parcels with a value ratio over one indicate that the building is less valuable than the land it lies upon, suggesting that the lot is underutilized. This approach is perhaps an

oversimplification; a future iteration of an effort like this one could attempt to quantify how land and building valuations are supposed to relate to one another, establishing what a typical ratio is and what a ratio would need to be in order for redevelopment of a parcel to be a foreseeable outcome.

The value ratio maps also reflect vacant parcels, as defined by the Durham County Office of Tax Administration, as the darkest color. This condition is meant to reflect that vacant parcels offer the greatest opportunity for development, as the opportunity cost of preparing the parcel for new development is lowest. However, it should be noted that some vacant parcels include land that is protected (such as city parks) or has been categorized incorrectly in the data (such as the VA Medical Center at the Duke Medical Center station site).

It should be noted that these statistics are imperfect. Land for which property taxes are not collected (such as that owned by the city or county), as well as institutional uses such as Duke University, often have values well below that of neighboring properties on a per-acre basis. Some parcels are absent of

59 assessments occurred in 2008. Therefore, these data attributes should be treated as generalizations on the cost and availability of land for each station area.

 Dwelling units: The number of dwelling units per parcel. This data can help confirm the accuracy of the “percentage of housing units as part of a residential structure with three or more housing units” metric.

Each of these maps is included in Appendix B of this report.

Additionally, findings from the D-O LRT’s Alternatives Analysis report analyzing the potential for transit- oriented development (TOD) at each of the D-O LRT corridor’s station sites is also employed in this section. Conversations with the Durham City-County Planning Department were conducted, and staff from this office and Triangle Transit reviewed this section to ensure aspects of development weren’t mischaracterized. The views included in this section, however, are entirely mine and are not intended to reflect the stances of either the City and County of Durham or Triangle Transit.

Although this section primarily aims to characterize how the inclusion of the D-O LRT will affect development over time, and where development may be concentrated owing to the neighborhood’s

orientation towards the D-O LRT corridor and its stations, I also discuss how the performance of the index reflects conditions at each station site in reality. Given the usage of Census and other quantitative data to create a representation of station site conditions, it is of value to examine how accurate these representations indeed are.

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