Re:Redfin Economist says land value tax will fix the economy
by toss1 on Tuesday June 21, 2022 @10:21AM
(#31824243)
Good thoughts.
>>government to simply give all land owners money equal to the value of their land
That is already in place - it's called eminent domain, and a SCOTUS case decided that it CAN be used for private development and not only for public works like roads. So, yes, govt could literally do a forced purchase of entire neighborhoods, and they would be required to pay current values, and then rebuild it at whatever density they want.
The other thing that could actually reduce complaints is to actually compensate the owners for loss of value. E.g., if single-family tracts have a value of $100 due to quality of living (wildlife, low traffic, open spaces, etc), and someone wants to put up massive apartment units in the middle, eliminating wildlife habitat, increasing traffic and consuming the open space, that will make the single-family unit's value decline to maybe $50 right next door, and $70 500 yards away, $90 1000 yds away, and $95 between the location and the major highway. Pay them the $50/$30/$10/$5 loss of their value, maybe in tranches when the project is approved, built, occupied. It can come out of some combination of the developer's or the town's budget.
That sort of appropriate compensation would go a long way towards reducing opposition.
What the tantrum-people ignore is that they want to live in the nice places, but giving them what they want is literally doing to destroy the very thing they want.
>>government to simply give all land owners money equal to the value of their land That is already in place - it's called eminent domain, and a SCOTUS case decided that it CAN be used for private development and not only for public works like roads. So, yes, govt could literally do a forced purchase of entire neighborhoods, and they would be required to pay current values, and then rebuild it at whatever density they want.
The other thing that could actually reduce complaints is to actually compensate the owners for loss of value. E.g., if single-family tracts have a value of $100 due to quality of living (wildlife, low traffic, open spaces, etc), and someone wants to put up massive apartment units in the middle, eliminating wildlife habitat, increasing traffic and consuming the open space, that will make the single-family unit's value decline to maybe $50 right next door, and $70 500 yards away, $90 1000 yds away, and $95 between the location and the major highway. Pay them the $50/$30/$10/$5 loss of their value, maybe in tranches when the project is approved, built, occupied. It can come out of some combination of the developer's or the town's budget.
That sort of appropriate compensation would go a long way towards reducing opposition.
What the tantrum-people ignore is that they want to live in the nice places, but giving them what they want is literally doing to destroy the very thing they want.