I’m not clear on this. Are you saying a surface parking lot, through property taxes, is “good enough” from the local governments POV that they won’t pursue incentives to get something built here? I get (mostly) how the land owners incentives work but wouldn’t the city see better revenues if they discouraged land banking practices? Where can I read more on that?
At least if the city did this, it should theoretically convince the NIMBYs that the council is not in the pocket of developers. But they’d also hate it because it would mean more tall buildings.
I think the real issue is that I would expect the state legislature to pass some law after being pressured by those landholders to prevent cities from doing this. We’ve seen that kind of thing in the past.
At the very least, the city should be able to pass some ordinance restricting gravel surfaces within downtown, so at least these lots would maybe get paved and kept up. Just say the gravel spills into the streets and is bad for city sewers. The lot across from Brass Tap looks so much better being a normal parking lot than the mess that used to be there.
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It would likely get a lot of lobbying from special interest groups because any policy against land banking would severely impact the large profits these investors/companies.
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Oh so I guess I’m just naive in thinking the government acts in the best interest of the general public.
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Split-rate property taxes are one way to deal with this, with the tax rate on land set higher than the tax rate on improvements (buildings etc). This is allowed in some states but not in North Carolina. Land-bankers pay more than under a single rate, and owners who develop their properties pay relatively less.
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Spokane (WA) recently introduced a higher tax rate on parking lots in the city to deter them:
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