Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Nope, surface parking is what attracts customers to stores which in turn generates revenue. People are willing to pay for surface parking in downtown and other places because driving is sometimes the best option for the day. Oak park, a burb has parking lots that generate revenue and the City of Chicago used to own them before they privatized them.
Parking lots near Metra station in one or two burbs of Chicago can have wait lists and people also pay for parking there. Heck there is paid parking for an Metra station not far from where I live and my area isn't that dense. Parking can generate plenty of revenue in the right instances.
You are confused. A parking lot that is associated with an improvement is not a vacant lot use for surface parking.
Land owners frequently land bank large parcels of land near center cities because they hold them as speculative investments. This does not benefit the city and keeps overall land value, economic impact and tax revenues to the lowest possible amount.
Far from being the highest and best use, an unimproved parking lot is arguable the lowest and worst use.
You don't develop anything without there being a demand for it. Owners don't usually sit on empty property for the fun of it, they sit on it because there's no demand for "highest, best use".
This plan is one which, if implemented will result in the total devastation of any green space, setbacks or bulk limits, totally destroying any sense of perspective in smaller towns (which are the locales George aims at). We've had elected officials here propose this a few times. They've all lost the next election.
The idea, which isn't feasible, is that owners will build-anything- to avoid high tax rates. Just as a note, this idea is one contributor to sprawl-tax farmland at developed rates to encourage the farmers to sell out to developers.
Don't you get tired trotting out discredited ideas with no grounding in reality?
vacant lots, surface parking lots, etc are not "green space" It's much more accurate to characterize this as blight.
You are confused. A parking lot that is associated with an improvement is not a vacant lot use for surface parking.
Land owners frequently land bank large parcels of land near center cities because they hold them as speculative investments. This does not benefit the city and keeps overall land value, economic impact and tax revenues to the lowest possible amount.
Far from being the highest and best use, an unimproved parking lot is arguable the lowest and worst use.
People don't bank land they put it to use. A parking lot is an use of land that generates revenue in one of two ways:
1. Customers with cars need somewhere to park nearby and will choose a store with a parking lot over one without. It isn't practical to use public transit for everything(Want to carry home 5 cans of paint on a bus or walk with it for blocks, good luck!).
2. The area has something in demand be it stores, employment, or transit access that people are willing to pay to park near.
The reason why people hold land is because there is no demand. I know of an case where a guy made a lot of money because his house which was ordinary was in a nice hot yuppie neighborhood. The developer bought it tore it down and put up an small three story condo! He could have put it up anywhere else in the city on vacant land but because that area is in demand he put it up there.
You don't develop anything without there being a demand for it. Owners don't usually sit on empty property for the fun of it, they sit on it because there's no demand for "highest, best use".
This plan is one which, if implemented will result in the total devastation of any green space, setbacks or bulk limits, totally destroying any sense of perspective in smaller towns (which are the locales George aims at). We've had elected officials here propose this a few times. They've all lost the next election.
The idea, which isn't feasible, is that owners will build-anything- to avoid high tax rates. Just as a note, this idea is one contributor to sprawl-tax farmland at developed rates to encourage the farmers to sell out to developers.
Don't you get tired trotting out discredited ideas with no grounding in reality?
Glad in MN we got the Green Acres program which means farmland gets taxed on its agriculture potential rather than development potential.
And now we'll hear from the open space proponents.
Really, the gov't should just get out of the social engineering business, and let people develop (or not) their land as they see fit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Komeht
And vacant lots produce nothing. That's the point - encourage land to be developed to its highest and best use instead of land banking and super low intensity parking lots that return nothing.
And now we'll hear from the open space proponents.
Really, the gov't should just get out of the social engineering business, and let people develop (or not) their land as they see fit.
Get used to it, especially in the East. The new stormwater management requirements are mandating more and more greenspace-from rain gardens to green roofs to impoundments.
Get used to it, especially in the East. The new stormwater management requirements are mandating more and more greenspace-from rain gardens to green roofs to impoundments.
And those actually promote sprawl - let me explain.
In PA often the stormwater police make developers pretend a paved vacant lot is "meadow, good condition" and use up half the lot on various stormwater basins and such. Then PENNDOT comes in and makes the prospective paved vacant lot developer give up 25% more of the lot on various traffic engineering fantasies and contributions to signalization to solve pre-existing traffic concerns. Then developer says to heck with it and moves further out to an ag field, leaving a blighted commercial property that could have been redeveloped at no cost to the taxpayer but for fantasyland regulations.
Then MD does the same thing on a regional scale - exporting its development to PA and WV to save a few horse farms.
An LVT can only really work where there are strict land use controls. The theory is that urban land derives most of its value from infrastructure improvements. If you're next to robust infrastructure you derive more of the benefits, you should be paying for a bigger portion of the ticket.
Of course, it doesn't work when you're in a region with a shrinking population and/or when a homeowner or business can cross the street to a different tax regime in a different municipality. So indeed, in a place like Pittsburgh, where the population has been shrinking, where property taxes from homeowners are carrying the town in the first place and where most new office buildings are popping up out by the airport of course a shift to LVT is going to adversely impact homeowners.
In theory the LVT would replace all other taxes - so no income taxes, no sales taxes, no use taxes - but of course the LVT is only ever introduced at the municipal level so it doesn't really have a chance at being successful . . . not that i'm completely convinced that it would be successful but, again, in theory, it's not without it's merits.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
