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They may not be paying taxes. When I worked with this in other states, most of time, it's commercial property that property owner LLC just walked away from because it's worthless. LLC exists on paper owning the land but has no money/assets besides the land so nothing for government to take. Bills just go into shredder and arrears continuing piling up.

County does not want to seize the land because they know they can't get tax amount owed and would be stuck with worthless property it has to maintain.

Probably need some form of tax amnesty system where counties can seize these properties, sell them off for any amount and wipe tax bill clean. However, that's process would be ripe for corruption which thinking about TX, I'm surprised they haven't allowed that.

> Probably need some form of tax amnesty system where counties can seize these properties, sell them off for any amount and wipe tax bill clean. However, that's process would be ripe for corruption which thinking about TX, I'm surprised they haven't allowed that.

In Washington state, tax foreclosure has a minimum bid of the taxes due and if there is no bid, the county takes title. Then there are procedures to sell those 'tax title' properties, my county says typically the minimum price is 80% of assessed value ... which would typically be more than the tax debt, so maybe better to participate in the tax foreclosure auction.

I don't know that the county has a duty to maintain tax title lands. Vacant land is probably going to get emergency maintenance by a government agency of last resort anyway.

Worse than vacant land will be land with abandoned structures, which would need to be demolished at someone's expense. Especially industrial sites where there may be hazardous waste, underground tanks, etc. present as well.

Right but there's not much of a difference between the government taking title and having to do it, and the government suing somebody who won't do it and then probably having to do it anyways.

Most Rust Belt cities had to do something like this because it turns out that just letting derelict property go resulted in neighborhoods death spiraling.

Yep. We should probably have industrial developers pay into some kind of fund that is then available to pay for cleanup if the site is abandoned. Basically insurance against a bankrupt owner leaving a mess for the public to deal with.

Instead we often give them tax abatements and other incentives with little recourse if they don’t deliver the promised economic growth and jobs.

There might not be a duty but I would say it's good policy. Tall grass is a fire risk and often a place to dump things. Also a source of weeds that spread to neighboring properties.

Lol you forget the llc are mostly owned by these politicians and their donors why would they do something that hurts themselves.

Somebody needs to compile a database of these and let people start actually taking advantage of the adverse possession laws.

Varies state to state, as usual, but 'round here:

The taxing authority (city or county, generally) maintains a list of all the property in tax arrears. Once a year, there is an auction where they go around the room and each bidder can bid a rate for each property; the lowest rate wins a coupon that entitles the bearer to collect the tax plus the rate from the property owner, but requires the bearer to pay the base tax to the taxing authority.

If a few years go by without the property owner retiring the debt, the holder can send a notice with some time requirements and after that, they can sue for the title and then they own the property. Usually the owner pays at the last moment but then they owe attorney's fees.

Adverse possession is completely different and would require living in the tax-delinquent property for several years.

Whole problem is likely the value of the land is less than taxes owed. So any system where county is HAS to get the taxes owed means no one will touch the property.

Thais “whole problem” is precisely what the existing system solves. I bid a future obligation to pay the tax only without the obligation to buy the land. At the end of the year, the county gets the whole tax payment from me.

It’s tempting to talk about “the whole problem” but if you don’t know how the system works it can be hard to see the forest for the trees.

Also I’ve never encountered a situation where the taxes past due exceeded the value of the land. The reason why is that long before this happens, someone already bought the tax debt, waited the statutory period, noticed the delinquent taxpayer, and filed for a quitclaim to transfer the land.

The second paragraph of the article attributes the hot spots to abandoned buildings and parking lots; vacant lots with vegetation are not the problem.

If we fill those abandoned buildings with people, air-conditioning the inside of the building for them will obviously add even more heat to the outside? Parking lots that are full of cars aren't going to be that much cooler than empty ones?

Basically the real story is just that trees make shade (yes, we know already) and "vacant or abandoned" isn't much involved (yes, but we want to discuss zoning/taxes/urbanism things)

There are complex trade offs there: housing uses more power than a parking lot but it also provides far more significant social goods, housing can be built with very different levels of energy usage and external heat emissions, and while people need housing they don’t need cars the same way so you can offset a substantial fraction of the pollution from housing by reducing the number of cars used by residents.

The main lesson I draw is that everything would improve by taxing externalities: the land is vacant because the property owners doesn’t have enough incentive to do something useful with it and we have a lot of inefficiency in our housing and transportation which a carbon tax would go a long way towards reducing.

>the land is vacant because [of some imaginary occurrences]

Texas is bigger than that.

They have always taxed more carbon and more land in ways that make them rich as hell, at the average citizen's expense.

To the envy of other states' greedy taxing entities.

That wasn't so bad when there was still enough widespread prosperity for the average citizen to be able to afford it.

The land is vacant after they tore down the buildings because the taxes were already too high, and rising too fast.

No brag, just fact.

"How far up is the river now, Ma?"

"Six feet deep, and rising . . ."

a white roof and a green lawn is going to reflect a lot more light than is emitted by an efficient AC.

>air-conditioning the inside of the building for them will obviously add even more heat to the outside?

Roger?

Well, if Roger's not here somebody's going to have to do the thermodynamics their own self, and it's good to take the initiative plus show it can be done wihtout scaring anybody by using equations or any of that complicated stuff :)

Is that a sort of joke?

If not, you cannot make the land cold with air condition. You can just move heat around, with AC from the inside to the outside, but that costs extra energy -> more heat

>Is that a sort of joke?

Yes!

But only if your name is Roger :)

>you cannot make the land cold with air condition. You can just move heat around, with AC from the inside to the outside, but that costs extra energy -> more heat

Which is exactly what I've been saying since I was a teenager.

According to thermodynamics anyway . . .

This is still just moving the heat around, but with metamaterials you can now passively convert the heat energy into wavelengths that do not get absorbed by the atmosphere and beam a decent chunk of it back into space.

I would like to know more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_daytime_radiative_cool...

I’d like to see how the land is classified, regardless. If it’s genuinely urban land, it should be taxed heavily enough to make it hurt if it is appraised correctly.

It’s possible this land is subject to delinquent taxes that, in Texas, incur significant interest.

Also, I’d want to know about zoning to see if the city has restricted the use of the land. Zoning is a double-edged sword as well.

If land is actually abandoned, taxation makes no difference. Land with abandoned biuldings can often cost more to redevelop than green fields (asbestos remediation, buried oil tanks etc). An owner dies, a holding company folds, and land sits vacant. Tax it all you want, nobody is around to pay. Of course the city or other government can take the land, but they dont want it either.

The owners of polluted industrial sites always manage to disappear when it comes time to clean them up. Socialise the losses and all that.

> Tax it all you want, nobody is around to pay

Why wouldn't this land immediately be forfeited to the city?

Nothing in land is ever immediate. Is it worth the legal efforts to force throufh a forfeiture? Does the city even want the land? Perhaps the land is tied up in a disputed estate. Such things can take a decade to resolve. Perhaps some holding company is using the land as an investment vehicle and is paying the taxes, if any are due. Owners have the right to let land sit.

> Owners have the right to let land sit.

Yes, hence the point of a vacancy tax, but that’s not relevant in the scenario here where they’re not paying. Having a short period, especially for non-residential property, is a good way to discourage tax cheating and it also helps with cleanup: the best time to deal with toxic waste was when it was generated but the second best time is now and absentee owners aren’t going to volunteer to do that. Seizing the land at least lets the government plan to do something useful with in an orderly manner before it starts causing problems too big to ignore.

Even if it does escheat to the city, the city has to pay for the various abatements.

here you go.

https://mycity.houstontx.gov/MYCITYDOCS/documents/map-LandUs...

No, no, no. You don’t understand. He wanted to see something that validated his completely unresearched yet strangely strongly held theory.

The idea that the owners of "brownfield" land (either undeveloped or in disrepair) might have taken advantage of tax loopholes to avoid a tax penalty is ridiculous? I see why they pay you the big bucks.

The map shows numerous parcels in metropolitan Houston classified as "Ag" property. The devil is in the details, but the map justifies (and encourages) closer inspection.

> The devil is in the details, but the map justifies (and encourages) closer inspection.

Wake me when you’ve been encouraged enough to complete your (justified) close inspection.

One of the problems Boston had a couple decades ago is actually figuring out who owns those abandoned lots.

>Also, I’d want to know about zoning

There is no zoning, that would be kind of dumb and self-defeating in Houston.

Houston was a planned industrial community.

Too late to edit now, but it might help to remind that it's always possible for people to indicate they are not very aware of a subject by their superstitious or misleading behavior, without having anything factual to add whatsoever, or even anything at all.

Which is well recognized as even dumber.

You don't see anybody trying to point out when actual zoning was enacted, or that Houston was founded where it was when it was for any other reason than to be the industrial powerhouse of the independent nation of Texas.

Except to serve as the Capitol of the new Nation too, but those guys moved to higher ground one day, I wonder why.

No brag, just fact.

Enquiring minds wanted to know.

Remember what Davy Crockett said when he was going back to Texas that time?

To some people it applies more than others.

It's extremely unlikely the land in question (paved lots and abandoned buildings) is agricultural.

"finds that vacant lots with vegetation can help cool surrounding areas. Abandoned buildings and paved lots do the opposite"

Beekeeping is popular, too. I know some wealthy people who pay a beekeeper to keep bees on their land and receive jarred honey with personalized labels as a little bonus on top of their tax break. "<Name>'s Honey" with a head shot.

yes i also know people who do that

>> including large ranches owned by hedge funds and foreign nationals.

Hedge Funds and Foreign Nationals owning large american ranches???

Why is that surprising to you? Land near a major US city is a great longterm investment.

Ironic that the toughest most immigrant-hating Mr Cowboy Murica State that is being carved up and sold to non americans. But you do you.

We keep the happiest pet cows in the old field in front of the family farmhouse after the farm downsized and sold most of the land so the city and state wouldn’t try to include it in the house plot sorts front yard acreage.

Different state but I think a similar conundrum. They’re old dairy cows living their best life.

Did you even take a cursory look at the article?