Document ID: EPA-HQ-OW-2008-0465-0464
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2008-12-02T05:00Z

Reed Data Used in the EA

Determine Analysis Dataset

Obtained building construction records in applicable categories that had
a site area listed (Database 1).

Since the number of residential and industrial records obtained within
Database 1 was significantly lower than the number of commercial
construction records, EPA obtained additional residential and industrial
construction records in applicable categories that did not have a site
area listed (Database 2). These records were used for data purposes that
did not require a site area value.

Obtained non-building construction records in applicable categories.
These records were only used to split-out State and Local compliance
costs from the State and Local total based on the proportion of total
project value in state and local governments.

Configure data so that all necessary data is within a project table: a)
determine the project record and update year according to the date
field, b) match the category code, ownership code, and stage code
assigned to a project with the appropriate name.

Since Reed does not report on a substantial amount of single-family
residential projects, EPA confirmed if the residential projects within
the database should be classified as single or multi-family
construction.

To analyze the projects by each construction industry, only those
projects that fell within a single industry were kept in the Analysis
database; e.g. if a project was classified as both a commercial and
multi-family project, this record was excluded from the Analysis
database. 

Merged the additional residential and industrial construction records
(Database 2) into the master Analysis database. These records also
underwent steps 4, 5 and 6.

Many projects were listed multiple times within the dataset. Therefore,
EPA determined the duplicate records and excluded the duplicates or,
when uncertain about why a project was listed multiple times, the entire
project would be excluded. This task ensures that duplicate records are
not used that could alter the data results. Duplicate records were
excluded by 1) performing an initial “group by” query to remove any
obvious duplicates, 2) removing duplicates that contained identical
project information but were assigned different project ids, 3) removing
duplicates that were brought over to Database 1 from the Database 2
download, and 4) removing duplicates where one project may be listed in
multiple records due to different project phases or disaggregating a
project. 

The ENR Construction Cost Index is introduced to convert the project
values into the appropriate year values used in the Analysis ($2006 or
$2008).

Projects with site areas greater than 450 acres were not included within
the Analysis database. EPA assumes that these records are outliers and
should not be included within the Analysis database.

Reed Data Incorporated Into the EA

General Information 

Project data reported by Reed that are relevant to this analysis,
include site size, constructed square footage, and project value. This
economic analysis used data from Reed for over 30,000 projects over the
period 2001 to 2008, which is the data period used in the analysis.

In working with the Reed data, EPA used a subset of project records that
were “cleaned” to remove outlier observations that appear to contain
erroneous data (e.g., site size data that appeared to be reported in
square feet instead of acres) and that might otherwise have skewed the
findings from the Reed data. The “cleaning” concept is based on
analysis of the indicated “acreage intensity” – acreage per
reported dollar value of activity – from the Reed data observations.
The observation subset included those records that fell within the 5th
and 95th percentiles of calculated acreage intensity values.

NLCD Acreage Disaggregation

EPA used the Reed data to develop a distribution of acreage by the small
and large project classifications, and by the relevant categories of
construction activity: multifamily residential, commercial, and
industrial. 

This information was used to distribute non-residential acreage between
the commercial and industrial categories and to the small and large
project classifications.

EPA also used site size information for multi-family projects to
determine the percent of acreage that falls within the small and large
multifamily construction category.

Developing the Baseline

Average project size data for the non-residential sectors is used (in
combination with the baseline acreage) to derive the indicated number of
projects at the baseline.

Project-Level Analysis

EPA developed specific characterizations of the number, size, and
orientation of unit(s) in a typical 1-acre project based actual project
data compiled from Reed Construction.

Number of buildings per project

Number of units per building

Number of floors per building

Reed Construction project data and R.S. Means are the primary data
sources used by EPA to establish the baseline construction costs for the
model multi-family residential construction project. 

Reed Construction indicates that, on average, a 1-acre multi-family
construction project consists of approximately 60,000 total square feet
of constructed space, distributed – on average – across 2.3
buildings with 4.7 floors and 36 housing units per building.

Reed Construction data indicate that, on average, a 1-acre commercial
and industrial project consists of 21,500 and 25,000 square feet of
constructed area, respectively.

Industry- and Firm-Level Analysis

Reed Construction data provided acreage intensity distributions (acres
per dollar of project value) for the multifamily and nonresidential
building construction sectors.

Partial Equilibrium C&D Market Models

For both the Commercial and Industrial Framework.

To convert the “per square foot” value for commercial/industrial
space into a “per acre” value, EPA used the Reed Construction
database to estimate the average quantity of commercial/ industrial
square footage constructed on any given acre land developed for
commercial/industrial purposes.

UMRA

State and Local compliance costs were split-out from the State and Local
total based on the proportion of total project value in state and local
governments from Reed Construction Data.

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