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Comment by webstrand | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, no LVT proponent has successfully explained to me how it does not cause the erasure of urban or even suburban green spaces, be they public parks, private parks, gardens, etc. If a park increases neighboring land values, then the taxes incurred by the park go up without recompense to the owner (assuming the park is not held by the government).

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How many private parks are there? Pretty much every one I've been to has been government run, other than small outdoor spaces next to private buildings and large pay for admission gardens that are usually way out in the boonies on the grounds of an old plantation or manor.

I can't think of how a private, but still public-access, park survives without a rich benefactor eating the losses, even today.

all of my favorite hiking areas in the birmingham, alabama area were privately owned. churches have public areas that you can enjoy as a non-member of the church. i'm sure we could think of more

edit: oh i just realized a huge one in my daily life: the intervale in burlington is owned by the intervale center but the community garden is managed by the city's parks & rec. also there are a ton of public trails on that private property.

In New York, you sometimes find unofficial community parks / third spaces on unused plots of land which for whatever reason (such as a strange shape) are difficult to develop. These are maintained by enthusiastic local residents, and the land owners turn a blind eye to it as long as there are no complaints.

If LVT is implemented, land owners will have a financial incentive to sell off the plots, and the spaces will be gone.

What incentive to sell off the plot does LVT create that doesn't already exist, maybe with a marginally lower degree? I'm guessing the reason they can't sell a tiny weirdly shaped lot is that no one wants it. If they didn't want it and they could sell it, they already have ample financial incentive to sell.

Sell them to who? How much would someone pay for land that's difficult to develop?

If someone else can develop the land, why doesn't the current land owner

Around here, there are a bunch of private parks in that you pay a fee to enter the park or you can purchase a membership. The fee is minimal and mostly just serves to maintain the park. These are privately held parks, too, not owned by local or state government.

As far as I am aware, they are able to survive on their membership or visitor fees. But major improvements do take larger donation.

Private park, where you can’t even walk without paying an upright fee? Sounds like dystopian late stage capitalism. If it’s a well maintained garden I understand, but a sqare lawn should be free put your foot on.

I think we're defining park differently. Yes, I mean a large maintained garden with maintained trails. Not just a blank piece of grass, which I wouldn't honestly call a park.

I think you might be slightly confused. Wouldn't the issue be not that the parks themselves are expensive to the owner tax (not only is thr landscaping not that expensive, as LVT excludes your own improvements), but instead that they are effectively discouraged by increasing the tax on everyone adjacent and thus peversely encouraging NIMBYism of towards a common good by imposing a negative externality which does not exist otherwise? The issue wouldn’t be that it would add a tax burden upon the park owner, but that it turns operating a common good into a 'sadistic' act that pushes costs onto others.

A LVT could thus accidentally wind up like a window tax in that it could wind up discouraging efficient improvements to human conditions out of a misguided attempt at improving perceived fairness.

I guess if everywhere's zoned for max density. If it's zoned as a public park, so no ability to develop it and generate revenue, or close it off for private use, then its rated value would be close to zero. Possibly negative if ownership imposes some maintenance obligations on the owner.

Parks built for the public benefit as 501c3 don’t pay property taxes.

I'm not really sure that's a complete solution. Couldn't you just spin up a 501 c3 org to hold onto properties until you want to do something with them, bypassing the LVT?

I wasn't suggesting a solution. I was just describing it as it is today. Presumably if you don't show 501c3 activities, you'd lose the status.

Any LVT would just involve scaling up land portion and setting building portion to zero in our current regimen. It wouldn't require anything novel. The 501c3 exemption is not something new I'm suggesting.

> taxes incurred by the park go up without recompense to the owner

The value of the park is going up, is that not recompense?

There will be more land for public parks if land use is more efficient due to a LVT

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