The Effects of Floodplain Regulations on Post-Disaster Housing Markets and Recovery

• In Event: Disaster Aid, Equity, and Electoral Disruptions: Analyzing the Impact of Climate Hazards and Government Responses

Abstract

This project documents differential impacts of flooding events in Florida on housing at different levels of observable quality, in terms of initial damages, repair trajectories, and housing prices, and evaluates how these effects are mediated by regulations that restrict supply or make it costlier to (re)build in the floodplain. I construct measures of property damage and repair using property tax assessment data and benchmark these measures against NFIP claims. Older and smaller residential properties, and properties in lower-income neighborhoods, are more likely to be damaged in floods. Variation in floodplain regulations is obtained from data on CRS credits, and the effects of regulations are estimated by comparing post-flooding trajectories in floodplain areas with a specific type of regulation to those in a propensity-weighted control group of non-regulation floodplain areas impacted by the same flooding event. I find that freeboard and low-density zoning are effective in reducing the probability of flood damages; additionally, none of the regulations studied impact the overall probability of repair conditional on damage, but low-density zoning decreases repair probability for older and smaller homes in particular. 

Author

• Serena Xu, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Presenting Author