At Monday’s Hoover City Council meeting, four out of six council members walked out when discussion arose about the impact of eliminating public school bus service in the city. What is the controversy? The impact study commissioned and paid for by City Councilman Gene Smith revealed a direct link between school transportation and area home prices.
Specifically, the independent study predicts that reducing “accustomed and embedded” student transportation service would interrupt home desirability and increase pricing trends, thereby harming Hoover’s employment, retail sales and overall appeal.
“It is our conclusion that the availability of school transportation provides value to a community. Its value is perceived to be a given, stable and factored positive that adds to the desirability of a community. Therefore, it is considered an established community element of steady and increasing home appeal and improving home values,” the report stated.
The medium-sized suburb of Birmingham, Ala., has grabbed headlines since July, when Hoover City Schools voted to eliminate regular-education transportation as of the 2014-2015 school year to save the district $2.5 million.
At present, the Hoover district offers bus transportation to students who live more than two miles from their school. According to the Transportation section of the district’s website, some 160 buses currently transport 5,764 students and travel 2,700 miles each day.
Joe Zanola, head of the Zanola Inc. consulting company, attended the Nov. 18 council meeting to present the study results. Zanola stressed that the loss of student transportation, whether totally eliminated or switched to a fee-based service, would negatively impact home sales and home values in the city.
The study examined school district historic and current home sales and pricing, as well as three-year projections with continued service by school buses vs. “disrupted service.” The researchers found the Alabama housing market is improving but lags the pace of recovery compared with much of the nation. According to a CoreLogic report released in late September, the greater Birmingham area leads among Alabama metro areas, with an increase in home prices of 5.5 percent from year to year. The study also relied on Census, IRS and MLS data.
In addition, Hoover area new homes inventory is faring better than the total Birmingham area, and new home starts are forecast to continue increasing — nearly doubling from 2012-2018 — under the status quo.
“Our anticipated outcome over the next few years of reduced school transportation disrupts the projected positive home trends. Instead, our forecast is an initial leveling to slight decline trending for total home sales, a leveling trend for home pricing, and an initial leveling to slight decline in new home building,” the report states.
Researchers examined school districts that experienced drastic changes in school bus service such as the Hawaii Board of Education, Burleson (Texas) Independent School District and the Sausalito-Marin City and Novato Unified school districts in California.
However, Zanola noted his company could find no other studies on how loss or disruption of bus service affected the housing market, jobs and retail sales in those communities — thus, his company’s analysis of Hoover’s situation was somewhat “groundbreaking,” he said.
They also reviewed school transportation systems in fast-growth communities. The population of Hoover, Ala., grew by 37 percent between the 2000 and 2010 census.
The full report is available here.
