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Almost from the day Las Vegas moneyman Steve Wynn proposed a $1 billion resort casino on land in Foxboro owned by the Kraft Group, some town residents have lauded it as a jobs- and revenue-generator, while others have bemoaned the traffic and unalterable changes it would bring to their quaint New England town.
Also at issue, and much more personal: Would a casino complex with an army of workers and thousands of daily visitors wreck local property values?
Most people count their home as life’s largest single investment. Any major development that could affect that investment – positively or negatively – is bound to spur vigorous debate.
A recent local blog entry about a casino’s possible effect on home prices attracted more than 100 comments in response.
The comments have ranged from reasoned – debating the merits of a casino – to personal attacks.
Residents and business owners who fear a casino say they already must deal with heavy traffic several times a year from football games and special events at Gillette Stadium.
A resort casino presumably would make smaller but noticeable traffic flows a daily occurence.
Combined with the advent of legal casino gambling, some opponents reason, that could make Foxboro less enticing to potential homebuyers.
While various studies cited by casino proponents appear to say otherwise, some like Rich Owens of the anti-casino group “No Foxboro Casino,” has a gut feeling to the contrary.
“If you have young kids and you’re thinking of moving to a town, will a casino make you want to come here? I don’t think so,” he said.
Some of the casino-positive studies and reports have cited rural areas or countywide rather than local comparisons, Owens said, and aren’t directly comparable to a development in a suburban environment surrounded by businesses and close to residential neighborhoods.
But, casino backers are just as adamant that a gaming complex and the businesses that come with it are more likely to either be neutral or even boost property values.
“Every responsible study we’ve seen indicates there’s no impact, whatsoever, or a slight increase in property values from a destination casino,” said Scott Farmelant, a spokesman for Jobs for Foxboro, a pro-casino group.
Farmelant said property values could actually rise as workers from a casino and related facilities seek housing in the Foxboro area. In addition, revenue generated by a casino and related development could help keep taxes low – a carrot for potential homebuyers.
Critics of the casino proposal aren’t so sure.
A casino would come with costs as well as revenue, they say, and additional traffic and safety concerns might adversely color perceptions of their town.
Farmelant says that with the kind of capital investment required for the proposed casino, hotel and related ventures, the developer would have every incentive to build quality into the project that would attract, rather than repel.
“When you’re talking about investing a billion dollars, it’s not likely that they’re going to build the type of project that will decrease property values and not be in line with their interests,” he said.
Area real estate brokers are split, too, on the potential impact of a resort casino that proponents say would add 4,000 permanent jobs to the area.
Cheryl Deschenes, owner of Hunter Properties in Plainville, said the additional people and economic activity that would come with the casino could produce an increased demand for housing that might lift property values.
“I think it will help not just at the low end of the market, but at the high end as well,” said Deschenes, who speculates that hotel and casino management, as well as rank and file workers, would be in the market for housing.
Re Gibson, manager at Coldwell Banker Real Estate in Franklin, said it’s conceivable a casino complex could offset home and real estate values, depending upon how close the properties are to the development.
“If it’s close enough that it might be affected by traffic flow, it’s possible,” she said of a potential casino. “If you’re talking about property being devalued because of the ‘kind of people it would attract,’ I don’t think so.”
But concluding that a casino will either be neutral or a boon to homeowners seems premature, say skeptics, who note that a smattering of existing studies either show mixed results or are based on areas that aren’t directly comparable to Foxboro or western Norfolk County.
A 2005 study by the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston that drew from data on Native American casinos in 26 states concluded that casinos had a “limited positive effect” on house prices.
Median prices rose about $6,000 in counties with casinos, the report said, but those effects were concentrated in sparsely populated rural counties.
Opponents say that doesn’t correlate directly with suburban Norfolk County, with more than 600,000 population. They also say a casino’s impact would be felt most directly in Foxboro, rather than across Norfolk County.
“This is a local issue, not a county issue,” said Owens with No Foxboro Casino. “I don’t see people in Cohasset getting excited about us having a casino here in Foxboro.”
In a finding similar to the Rappaport study, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission issued a report in 1999 concluding that counties that introduced gambling showed increased growth in property values as well as employment, income, tourism and recreational opportunities, according to a passage quoted by casino proponents.
However, the sentence preceding that finding notes that the “recent institutionalization of gambling appears to have benefited economically depressed communities in which it is offered.”
“Foxboro is not an economically depressed community, so this study has absolutely no bearing on Foxboro,” Owens said.
One study that seems to support proponents of a Foxboro casino is a Nov. 28, 2000, report by the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis. The report studied the economic effect of the Foxwoods hotel-casino complex built on the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Reservation in 1992.
Much of Connecticut suffered a flattening of real estate values following the recession 1989, and the towns of Ledyard, North Stonington and Preston near the casinos were no exception.
Property values in those towns increased 12 percent from 1981 to 1989, but increased only 1 percent from 1990 to 1999.
Still, the three towns fared better than the greater Hartford area, where prices actually fell. The study’s authors concluded the casinos actually helped values.
A study commissioned by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce also concluded that in the area of Foxwoods and the neighboring Mohegan Sun casino “the increase in home values were substantially greater than the average statewide gain.”
But that opinion isn’t shared by all neighbors who live close to the Connecticut casinos.
According to a 2002 study prepared by the Preston Board of Selectmen, the value of homes along major routes leading to the casino fell as much as 20 percent, compared with similar properties in the same town but located farther from casino traffic.
First Selectman Robert Congdon said that continues to be the case in his rural community, mostly because of the amount of traffic to and from the nearby casinos.
North Stonington officials also issued a report in 2001 linking the casinos to falling property values along main traffic routes.
Jobs for Foxboro’s Farmelant said traffic would not have the same impact in Foxboro, where highway infrastructure has been built to handle a major league sports stadium and a large shopping-entertainment development.
Over the full, 20-year history of casinos in Connecticut, it’s hard to know precisely what effect Foxwoods has had on home prices, said John F. Bolduc, president and CEO of the Eastern Connecticut Board of Realtors.
Bolduc said the board does not have figures correlating home values to casino gambling.
He does point to a major difference between the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos, and a potential resort casino complex in Foxboro, however.
Both tribal casinos are on large reservations in rural areas with few neighboring property owners.
That makes the Native American casinos far different from the Wynn project, located on Route 1 in a teeming commercial district and a relatively short distance from residential neighborhoods.
None of that makes pro- or anti-casino residents and groups hold any less tightly to their opinions.
Owens says he’s wary of drawing conclusions from studies that base their findings on a wide range of locations and circumstances.
“I haven’t seen any study that’s directly comparable to Foxboro,” he said.
Farmelant says research so far seems to indicate that casino’s don’t adversely affect property values and that their overall effect on the economy is positive.
“All of the studies show that the economic benefits of a destination resort casino far outweigh the impacts of the development,” he said.
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