A new study published by the University of Guelph stating wind turbines have no effect on property values of nearby homes and farms poses more questions than it answers, industry critics state.
The research, published in the Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, was conducted over an eight-year period between 2002 and 2010 in Melancthon Township and 10 surrounding townships in Dufferin, Grey, Simcoe and Wellington counties.
The property values of over 7,000 home and farm sales were analyzed based on proximity to wind farm developments and turbine visibility.
The study was conducted by Richard Vyn, a University of Guelph professor in the department of food, agricultural and resource economics, and Ryan McCullough, a policy analyst for Health Canada and UofG graduate.
Vyn and McCullough found wind farms had “no statistically significant effect on property values,” the pair stated in a News release. They said they wanted to conduct the survey in response to growing public outcry over wind power’s detrimental effects.
“It’s been in the News for a while now and it seems to be generating more and more concerns among local residents,” Vyn said. “I wanted to see whether the stories people are telling and the concerns that they are expressing show up in the sales data.”
However, Ontario Wind Concerns president Jane Wilson says the study is just the tip of the iceberg, noting it leaves many questions unanswered and calls for more extensive research on the subject.
Part of the problem, she said, is the study doesn’t take into account properties that are put up for sale and don’t sell – or how long it takes to make a sale.
“When you put a house up for sale and it doesn’t sell, that’s not recorded anywhere,” Wilson said.
“The other problem was that they did not look at the effect of multiple turbines, because many properties are not close to just one, they’re close to three, maybe four, maybe more than that.”
She added the study also does not take into account factors outside the range of statistical data.
“If you talk to any real estate agent, they’ll tell you if people phone up and they see a property listed for sale, they’ll ask, ‘can I see a turbine from that property?’ and if the answer is ‘yes,’ they go away,” Wilson explained.
For this reason, she says more input is needed from real estate agents and appraisers.
“Why aren’t they talking to realtors? Why aren’t they talking to qualified real estate appraisers? Richard Vyn is a respected person in his profession in economics … but I would like to see studies done by the people who have the expertise in market research in real estate,” said Wilson.
Eric Vangrootheest, a real estate agent with Royal Lepage RCR in Fergus, told the Advertiser he continues to see properties located near wind turbines decrease by 10 to 15 per cent in value.
“One house, you seriously had to go to the top of a hill on the back of the property to see [the turbines] and we still lost the sale,” he said.
“We have tried listing [the properties] for what they would normally sell for and they just don’t sell – especially if the turbines are very, very visible.”
Vangrootheest says buyers are less concerned about potential health risks than losing money when they go to sell in the future.
“I do a lot of rural properties and it’s consistently the same … they’re worried they’re not going to be able to resell them,” he explains.
“We’ve tried to explain to them that there’s always the possibility that there’s going to be wind turbines, no matter where you go in Ontario now … but they want to see where the applications are, and they do not want to be there.”
Going forward, as wind farms become the norm province wide, Vangrootheest says the stigma surrounding these properties may subside, but right now it is very difficult to sell and market homes near turbines.
“As long as the projects are never bigger than four or five or six, in 10 or 20 years, I don’t know if there will be as negative an impact, unless you’re within a kilometre [away],” he said. “But when you’re too close or there’s too many, you’re in trouble.”
Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, says the University of Guelph’s study is consistent with similar research his association has seen on the subject.
“Across North America the most comprehensive and detailed studies that have looked at this question of wind turbines and property values have very consistently come to a common conclusion, which is that wind turbines do not have a statistically significant impact on property values,” he told the Advertiser.
He says decreasing property values can be influenced by a number of factors and a nearby wind farm is just one possible component.
“I think it’s important to consider the best quality research in this area because clearly trying to assess the impact of any single factor on a property value is quite challenging because property values can be influenced by many, many things,” he said.
“You’d have to do a similar sort of analysis to understand why a property wasn’t selling because again there could be many multiple factors that come into play.”
He says amid the controversy people sometimes forget the positive impact wind farms can have on communities.
“[Wind farms] provide new revenues for land owners … they create new revenue streams for municipalities, they are invested in services that help to improve the quality of life for citizens,” said Hornung.
“It’s very rare that you would see a wind farm today that isn’t making significant contributions to community causes.”
Nevertheless, Wilson noted the absence of Ontario-specific research on the effect wind turbines have on property values. She says communities have been rallying the government for more information since 2008.
“There were over 70 communities in Ontario which asked the provincial government to do a study on the financial impact on their communities of allowing wind power projects to go forward. That was never done,” said Wilson.
“We’re here in 2014 and even though the auditor general said that should have been done, it never has, so you don’t have any proper independent analysis of the effect on property sales, or the effect on tourism.”
As more wind farms continue to crop up, Wilson says these issues can no longer be ignored.
“All along the Huron coast, the Huron shores in Bayfield, Blue Water – those wind farm projects are going in, what’s going to be the effect on cottage values, what’s going to be the effect on tourism?” she asks.
“None of those studies have been done by the Ontario government and they still, now more than ever, need to be done.”
Dan Hurlbert, of Oppose Belwood Wind Farm, says the study is so vague it is hard to determine its value and he would need more details in order to form an opinion on Vyn’s work.
However, he says in Belwood he has seen first-hand the effect wind farms have on property value.
“There’s no doubt about it. There’s been quite a high turnover of properties – especially on [Wellington Road 16] … the vendors started selling them as soon as the turbine project was announced and quite a few of them have turned over in the last three years,” he says.
“I know a number of people who sold, [did so] under duress. They just wanted to get out of there before the turbines came and a number of them were on the market for an extremely long period of time.”
Hurlbert says future studies need to compare turbine-adjacent properties to those of similar value outside wind farm proximity.
“It has to include, over a period of time … the values of properties in close proximity to the turbines, to properties that are of similar value in a similar area to see whether there is a discount or not,” he says.
“But I don’t have the details of the study so it’s really hard to know what it means.”
According to the News release, Vyn and McCullough’s is the first peer-reviewed study in Canada to focus on how wind turbines affect property values. Theirs is especially unique because it is based on actual sales data, they say.
Going forward, Vyn wants to expand his research to include all of Ontario, with hope of informing policy discussion on future wind farm developments in the province.
He says he also wants to explore the impact of public opinion and stigma on property values.
“I’m very curious about whether we will get similar results across Ontario or whether there will be variation – if we will find a relationship between the amount of resistance a municipality receives to a wind farm going up and potential impacts on property values,” Vyn said.
Until then, Wilson says, Vyn has added to the dialogue of research surrounding the community impact of wind farms, but it is not the final word.
“[The study] asks more questions than it has answers for; you’re looking at the types of analysis the study did and you can’t measure what didn’t happen – this was not considered. Somebody needs to do a study where that is considered,” she said.
