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DRAFT OC Board of Adjustment – 11/9/15 Page 84 of 156 John Price: Would you describe what you did and took into consideration in arriving at your 1 evaluation? 2 3 Michael Ogburn: Yeah, sure. Anytime you’re engaged to do an appraisal what you’re supposed to 4 do is put yourself into the mindset of a prospective buyer so when I’m looking at the property then 5 I’m supposed to look as if I am a typically motivated buyer. So obviously, in this instance, the first 6 question you have: if I’ve got two properties, both of them are in my opinion equal, one of them 7 you’ve got a 200-foot metal pole and the other one you don’t, which one are you going to buy? It 8 seems pretty clear to me that you’re going to buy the one that doesn’t have the 200-foot metal 9 pole. So since that seemed to be reasonable and logical then you start looking for data to either 10 support or to dis-sway your preconceived concept as to whether or not it would have an adverse 11 effect. So I ran across an article where they had pulled people about their opinion as to whether or 12 not it would have an adverse effect. Well it did, and as I recall it was somewhere in the 13 neighborhood of about 78% would have a negative view towards being approximate to a cell 14 phone tower. That seems reasonable to me. Then, I found a study that had been published by the 15 Appraisal Journal where they had done a much more humanistic study on the effects and 16 proximity of cell phone towers. And again, their conclusions seemed to mirror what they did. So 17 we understand then if this proximity to view a 200-foot metal pole is going to affect the opinion of 18 potential buyers. We’re going to have a downward shift of the demand curve and from EC 101 first 19 day if your demand curve goes down you’ve got fewer potential buyers, the price has to come 20 down. That’s just a fact. So it seems reasonable then that this is what the effects are going to be. 21 You can argue about how much but it’s almost inarguable that it’s not going to have an adverse 22 effect on value. So then the next thing was to find instances of proximity to cell phone towers and 23 their effect on value. There’s a neighborhood in Holly Springs called Cobble Ridge that had a cell 24 phone tower built on one of the lots in the neighborhood. So the first thing I did was, ok let’s look 25 at the map and we’ll pick out the houses that are immediately next to that and we’re going to 26 compare what those houses sold for versus what the rest of the neighborhood sold for to see if 27 there’s an impact. What we found was that these houses that were immediately adjacent to the 28 cell phone tower were approximately 12% smaller than the median house in the neighborhood. So 29 they were less expensive and they were smaller. We also found that they sold for the same price 30 per foot as the rest of them. Well all things being equal, a smaller house is going to sell for more 31 per foot, not the same amount. I’ll give you a real quick example I can do in my head. I’ve got two 32 properties. They’re side by side. They both have a $50,000 lot. House A is a 1,000 square feet. 33 That’s $50 a square foot. House B is 2,000 square feet. That’s $25 a square foot. All things being 34 equal, the smaller the house the more per foot it should sell for. If it’s not selling for more per foot 35 then we understand that there is an adverse influence. Additionally, when you look in the MLS you 36 see that the realtors that have those properties listed noted on those properties that were adjacent 37 to the cell phone tower that the cell phone tower was there and that they believe they had already 38 adjusted the price downward to account for that. So we understand that they have been getting 39 some feedback so they were trying to be pro-active in marketing these and saying that, hey we 40 understand it’s got a cell phone tower and we’ve already accounted for it. Yes sir? 41 42 Barry Katz: I have a couple questions. You mentioned this Journal article. 43 44 Michael Ogburn: Yes sir. 45 46 Barry Katz: It seems pretty significant that there might be a Journal article. Is this …… It would be 47 good to have an opportunity to see this Journal article and actually look at it and see what it is that 48 they’re saying. It could be highly significant; not only for this case but for whenever we have to 49 consider this. 50 86