[RP TownTalk] Lot size difference

[Jack R. Jones]

>
>Message: 4
>Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 08:50:05 -0400
>From: "Regina M. Kreger" <regina at kreger.net>
>Subject: Re: [RP TownTalk] Who pays, more or less, et cetera
>To: TownTalk at riverdale-park.org
>Message-ID: <443F9A7D.2060206 at kreger.net>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>Jack R. Jones wrote:
>
>>  The reason there is not much tax difference on the residential lots is
>>  that additional land over the "standard" lot is that it is assessed as
>>  agricultural land.
>
>
>It is???  Cool!  So far it's just waaaay too many tomatoes, but little
>by little......... Planning on adding beans, corn, squash, melons this
>year. A few peppers and eggplants. Maybe some cucumbers.  Eventually
>fruit trees and shrubs.  Yeah.
>

Jack here:

The additional frontage of the larger lot requires additional road, 
sidewalk, and trees which marginally increases the taxes that the 
town needs for operation, capital, and maintenace. That is not the 
only cost added, more pipe is needed, increase the cost of WSSC 
service. More utility poles and wire, increase the cost of cable, 
phone, and electric service. Time or/and energy cost by having to 
drive or walk further when going by the extra lot (a similar 
situation, the unnecessary one way street in front of my house adds 
about $30-$40 fuel cost per year to my budget there are four more 
houses on the street with similar added cost).

So a case may be made for assessment of extra lot footage as 
residential land and that certainly would be fair and it would raise 
taxes with the current system as well as LVT, I take it that SDAT has 
taken it that the extra green space serves the common good, but maybe 
the owner gets all the benefit and none goes to the commons, and they 
should be taxed at the residential rate.

Zoning, the Federal and State mortgage deduction, Utility regulations 
that prevent customers from having to pay the marginal cost of 
delivery, Property Tax on improvements are factors that subsidize 
sprawl; and there are probably other factors.

MUTC Zone is a zone created to emulate the old paradigm of City 
Planning (and over come the disaster known as Zoning (born circa 
1940-1950 which gave us old town centers of the likes of Alexandria, 
Georgetown, Frederick, Baltimore up until MUTC it was illegal to 
build anything like them. Federal/State mortgage deductions here well 
subsidize you living in a separate house instead of more efficient 
apartments. The Mac Mansion folks do not want to pay the cost of 
their sprawling, so lets be fair and charge everyone the same. High 
property tax, let us move out to where the property taxes are lower.

The big picture is that there is a panoply of diseconomies at 
operation. It is plain silly to by pass a beneficial economic action 
that is so easy to accomplish, we need to make progress where we can 
and not reject a part because we do not have the whole. The US 
Constitution was not rejected even though it had flaws, the founders 
had the wisdom to start a Democratic Republic and leave it to 
posterity to Abolish Slavery, Enfranchise Women, Establish Civil 
Rights for All Citizens...and still it is a work in progress.

A Challenge: How did Early Feudalism encourage the development of 
Efficient Cities in Europe?

-- 
"We have met the enemy, and he is us!" Pogo Possum
http://theriverdaleobserver.blogspot.com