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> art galleries, theaters, cute mom & pop retail, auto service & repair, manufacturing jobs > LVT says the state should not only stop protecting these things,

by klipt 8y ago

> art galleries, theaters, cute mom & pop retail, auto service & repair, manufacturing jobs > LVT says the state should not only stop protecting these things, it should do a 180 and actively kill the uses by levying taxes they can't afford. Do all of those things have to be at ground level? Remember space is not taxed (the marginal tax on building up more space vertically is 0), only land. If a theater is on the 5th floor of a larger building, does it stop being a theater?

closeparen 8y ago
Over the long run, densification should result in more and cheaper space, but it is not clear whether or how the theater would get that new lease at a rate it can afford (new-construction premium counteracting land efficiency) and how it would survive the transition period. The risk might be worth the reward, but reasonable people could also believe that it isn’t. So little is known about how to create these nice little small-business districts, or whether it’s even possible in this day and age, that there is a strong current towards preserving the ones we have.
- klipt 8y ago
  > but it is not clear whether or how the theater would get that new lease at a rate it can afford Can any theater afford a ground level space at current San Francisco prices? If a theater can only afford to be in San Francisco because of Prop 13 then we should recognize that as a form of taxpayer subsidy for the theater. If there is the political will for taxpayers to subsidize theaters (why not, art is nice), then why not subsidize a theater's lease on the 5th floor of some building, instead of preventing building up by subsidizing a one storey theater on the ground floor? But I think there's a good argument to be made that the taxpayer subsidy process should be more transparent and less arbitrary than "whichever theater bought its land longer ago gets a bigger subsidy".

by klipt 8y ago

closeparen 8y ago

Over the long run, densification should result in more and cheaper space, but it is not clear whether or how the theater would get that new lease at a rate it can afford (new-construction premium counteracting land efficiency) and how it would survive the transition period. The risk might be worth the reward, but reasonable people could also believe that it isn’t. So little is known about how to create these nice little small-business districts, or whether it’s even possible in this day and age, that there is a strong current towards preserving the ones we have.

klipt 8y ago
> but it is not clear whether or how the theater would get that new lease at a rate it can afford Can any theater afford a ground level space at current San Francisco prices? If a theater can only afford to be in San Francisco because of Prop 13 then we should recognize that as a form of taxpayer subsidy for the theater. If there is the political will for taxpayers to subsidize theaters (why not, art is nice), then why not subsidize a theater's lease on the 5th floor of some building, instead of preventing building up by subsidizing a one storey theater on the ground floor? But I think there's a good argument to be made that the taxpayer subsidy process should be more transparent and less arbitrary than "whichever theater bought its land longer ago gets a bigger subsidy".