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>>through multiple non-residence ownership taxation Can you clarify what you mean by this? It sounds like basically a "landlord tax." >>reduction in the requi

>>through multiple non-residence ownership taxation Can you clarify what you mean by this? It sounds like basically a "landlord tax." >>reduction in the required number of parking spaces per residence unit Certainly that would reduce costs in some cases, though it could be problematic in others. eg, many neighborhoods near me already have a shortage of parking (street parking is constantly full), and the zoning only calls for 1 spot per unit. Reducing that would just lead to more problems, and probably parking tickets for residents. >>reduction in average square footage That would certainly help, particularly in areas where the land is expensive.

rprospero 13y ago
I interpreted the "multiple non-residence ownership taxation" as more of a non-landlord tax. I met a fellow back around 2002 who owned twenty houses out in Arizona. He had never actually seen any of them - he just owned them as an investment. Also, since being a landlord was too much hassle and legal liability, he wasn't renting them out. The houses just sat vacant and he intended to make his money on housing prices outpacing inflation. The theory behind the tax is that having large numbers of houses sitting around empty is a poor use of resources. By increasing the property tax on unoccupied houses, the owner is encouraged to rent out the units, increasing the overall housing supply and thereby decreasing rents.
- natrius 13y ago
  You should introduce that fellow to real estate investment trusts, where he'd be almost guaranteed to make more money than his strategy.
- breischl 13y ago
  Ah, so a "housing speculator tax" or an "unused residence tax." That makes a lot more sense than a landlord tax. edit: Occurs to me that this would help deal with bank-owned properties that can sometimes sit vacant for quite a while. OTOH, that very thing might make it harder to get a mortgage - lenders would be scared they'd end up owning some unsaleable property in downtown Detroit, and paying elevated taxes on it to boot.
  - ChuckFrank 13y ago
    Correct. Vacancies that accrue speculative value, or vacancies that are covered by rental insurance destroy the housing supply chain. Rentals on the other hand are amazing. They are a great way for people to start on their way to home ownership, and they are great for labor mobility. Robust rental markets should be supported by the type of residences allowed by planning - granny units, alley units, secondary units, etc. Plus smaller rental units as well.
- numbsafari 13y ago
  Such a tax would be especially beneficial in a city like Philadelphia, where such a high proportion of lots are sitting vacant or uninhabitable and the owners are nowhere to be found. It also doesn't help that the city is derelict in its duty to collect existing property taxes, and has been entirely incompetent when it comes to claiming those properties and reselling them.
nerfhammer 13y ago
> many neighborhoods near me already have a shortage of parking (street parking is constantly full), and the zoning only calls for 1 spot per unit. Reducing that would just lead to more problems, and probably parking tickets for residents. End free long-term street parking. You don't have a right to a parking space that the everyone without a car has to pay for in taxes.
- Govannon 13y ago
  This works great in dense cities with good mass transit. Some cities like Los Angeles virtually require auto ownership; this would just further increase costs in low income neighborhoods not served by effective mass transit.
  - numbsafari 13y ago
    So build more effective mass transit systems... We have to work harder as a nation to make it a point of pride to use public rather than private transit. We got ourselves into this pickle by convincing everyone that owning your own car was the ultimate status symbol, when in fact we have merely traded the tyranny of transit schedules for the tyranny of parking garage fees, gas taxes, foreign oil imports and trade imbalances.
    - moskie 13y ago
      This actually makes me curious about how much the housing crisis we find ourselves in now relates to America's love affair with the car. Afterall, the explosion of suburbia goes hand in hand with that love affair. Perhaps it's a chicken-or-the-egg problem.... ... but maybe not. Maybe if it weren't the demand of car-centric transportation systems, and thus car-centric city planning, perhaps the housing we would have otherwise built would have avoided the housing crisis we're sweating over now. Or would have at least mitigated the crazy supply and demand problems we're facing.
    - Balgair 13y ago
      LA is never going to have real good mass transit. It's just too big and sparse. Currently, they are expanding the metro-expo line to Santa Monica in West LA. It is going along Olympic Blvd. This is a choice they had to make. The majority of sky-rises are along Wilshire Blvd. and Santa Monica Blvd. These parallel Olympic at a distance of about 1500 to 3000 feet to the north (http://imgur.com/FduYKNf http://imgur.com/FduYKNf). Thats about 11 minutes without stoplights to Wilshire from Olympic. Now, stations aren't going to be everywhere along Olympic (http://imgur.com/8asaNwq http://imgur.com/8asaNwq). For all of west LA, there are 4 stops. Getting to your job on Wilshire is going to take more than 11 minutes, maybe 30. The time you may have saved in taking the train, will be out weighed by the walk to work. Not to mention that most of the people working there are not living along the expo line, many live in the valley. Getting a line from the Valley to West LA is all but impossible. There isn't a lot of land to put it on. You have maybe Sunset to squeak it though, and that's not all that flat of land either. You have to get to work, and you want to do it quickly. The train is not going to do that unless you have a lot more of them going everywhere. People commute a long ways in LA and there is no thing as 'counter-commute.' LA has no central place. There is a downtown, but its just a place like any other. LA is the very definition of a poorly planned city. But trying to horn it into a planned city will take many many years. You have tons of issues to deal with. You might be able to encourage a planned city, ala this metro line seeding growth in the right places. However, it is just going to take a long time.
dalke 13y ago
rprospero addressed your first topic. I interpret the second along the lines of Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking". Someone pays for the free parking, even if it's hidden in higher property rates because the land for parking can't be used for other reasons. If the demand for street parking is so high, then its cost is too low. Of course it's not as simple as putting in 24 hour parking meters. Residents should be able to buy a parking pass, but with caution - surely the 3rd parking pass for a one person household should be much closer to market rate than the first parking pass. It may also mean adjustments in how the city works, which might include more bike lanes and mass transit. There isn't a simple answer, but zoning law prohibit some alternatives. Here's an example of how zoning parking requirements can be a problem: http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/08/06/how-parking-requirements-get-in-the-way-of-new-chicago-businesses/ http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/08/06/how-parking-requiremen... .
- avn2109 13y ago
  >>"...surely the 3rd parking pass for a one person household should be much closer to market rate than the first parking pass." I daresay that all 3 passes ought to be bought at market rate. That's sort of the point of eliminating free street parking.
malandrew 13y ago
"already have a shortage of parking (street parking is constantly full)" I see that as a sign that the neighborhood has outgrown cars and parking. Once the per capita density hits a certain point, it's time to move from cars to public transportation.

rprospero 13y ago

I interpreted the "multiple non-residence ownership taxation" as more of a non-landlord tax. I met a fellow back around 2002 who owned twenty houses out in Arizona. He had never actually seen any of them - he just owned them as an investment. Also, since being a landlord was too much hassle and legal liability, he wasn't renting them out. The houses just sat vacant and he intended to make his money on housing prices outpacing inflation. The theory behind the tax is that having large numbers of houses sitting around empty is a poor use of resources. By increasing the property tax on unoccupied houses, the owner is encouraged to rent out the units, increasing the overall housing supply and thereby decreasing rents.

natrius 13y ago
You should introduce that fellow to real estate investment trusts, where he'd be almost guaranteed to make more money than his strategy.
breischl 13y ago
Ah, so a "housing speculator tax" or an "unused residence tax." That makes a lot more sense than a landlord tax. edit: Occurs to me that this would help deal with bank-owned properties that can sometimes sit vacant for quite a while. OTOH, that very thing might make it harder to get a mortgage - lenders would be scared they'd end up owning some unsaleable property in downtown Detroit, and paying elevated taxes on it to boot.
- ChuckFrank 13y ago
  Correct. Vacancies that accrue speculative value, or vacancies that are covered by rental insurance destroy the housing supply chain. Rentals on the other hand are amazing. They are a great way for people to start on their way to home ownership, and they are great for labor mobility. Robust rental markets should be supported by the type of residences allowed by planning - granny units, alley units, secondary units, etc. Plus smaller rental units as well.
numbsafari 13y ago
Such a tax would be especially beneficial in a city like Philadelphia, where such a high proportion of lots are sitting vacant or uninhabitable and the owners are nowhere to be found. It also doesn't help that the city is derelict in its duty to collect existing property taxes, and has been entirely incompetent when it comes to claiming those properties and reselling them.

nerfhammer 13y ago

> many neighborhoods near me already have a shortage of parking (street parking is constantly full), and the zoning only calls for 1 spot per unit. Reducing that would just lead to more problems, and probably parking tickets for residents. End free long-term street parking. You don't have a right to a parking space that the everyone without a car has to pay for in taxes.

Govannon 13y ago
This works great in dense cities with good mass transit. Some cities like Los Angeles virtually require auto ownership; this would just further increase costs in low income neighborhoods not served by effective mass transit.
- numbsafari 13y ago
  So build more effective mass transit systems... We have to work harder as a nation to make it a point of pride to use public rather than private transit. We got ourselves into this pickle by convincing everyone that owning your own car was the ultimate status symbol, when in fact we have merely traded the tyranny of transit schedules for the tyranny of parking garage fees, gas taxes, foreign oil imports and trade imbalances.
  - moskie 13y ago
    This actually makes me curious about how much the housing crisis we find ourselves in now relates to America's love affair with the car. Afterall, the explosion of suburbia goes hand in hand with that love affair. Perhaps it's a chicken-or-the-egg problem.... ... but maybe not. Maybe if it weren't the demand of car-centric transportation systems, and thus car-centric city planning, perhaps the housing we would have otherwise built would have avoided the housing crisis we're sweating over now. Or would have at least mitigated the crazy supply and demand problems we're facing.
  - Balgair 13y ago
    LA is never going to have real good mass transit. It's just too big and sparse. Currently, they are expanding the metro-expo line to Santa Monica in West LA. It is going along Olympic Blvd. This is a choice they had to make. The majority of sky-rises are along Wilshire Blvd. and Santa Monica Blvd. These parallel Olympic at a distance of about 1500 to 3000 feet to the north (http://imgur.com/FduYKNf http://imgur.com/FduYKNf). Thats about 11 minutes without stoplights to Wilshire from Olympic. Now, stations aren't going to be everywhere along Olympic (http://imgur.com/8asaNwq http://imgur.com/8asaNwq). For all of west LA, there are 4 stops. Getting to your job on Wilshire is going to take more than 11 minutes, maybe 30. The time you may have saved in taking the train, will be out weighed by the walk to work. Not to mention that most of the people working there are not living along the expo line, many live in the valley. Getting a line from the Valley to West LA is all but impossible. There isn't a lot of land to put it on. You have maybe Sunset to squeak it though, and that's not all that flat of land either. You have to get to work, and you want to do it quickly. The train is not going to do that unless you have a lot more of them going everywhere. People commute a long ways in LA and there is no thing as 'counter-commute.' LA has no central place. There is a downtown, but its just a place like any other. LA is the very definition of a poorly planned city. But trying to horn it into a planned city will take many many years. You have tons of issues to deal with. You might be able to encourage a planned city, ala this metro line seeding growth in the right places. However, it is just going to take a long time.

dalke 13y ago

rprospero addressed your first topic. I interpret the second along the lines of Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking". Someone pays for the free parking, even if it's hidden in higher property rates because the land for parking can't be used for other reasons. If the demand for street parking is so high, then its cost is too low. Of course it's not as simple as putting in 24 hour parking meters. Residents should be able to buy a parking pass, but with caution - surely the 3rd parking pass for a one person household should be much closer to market rate than the first parking pass. It may also mean adjustments in how the city works, which might include more bike lanes and mass transit. There isn't a simple answer, but zoning law prohibit some alternatives. Here's an example of how zoning parking requirements can be a problem: http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/08/06/how-parking-requirements-get-in-the-way-of-new-chicago-businesses/ http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/08/06/how-parking-requiremen... .

avn2109 13y ago
>>"...surely the 3rd parking pass for a one person household should be much closer to market rate than the first parking pass." I daresay that all 3 passes ought to be bought at market rate. That's sort of the point of eliminating free street parking.

malandrew 13y ago

"already have a shortage of parking (street parking is constantly full)" I see that as a sign that the neighborhood has outgrown cars and parking. Once the per capita density hits a certain point, it's time to move from cars to public transportation.