Vancouver
Community for the city of Vancouver, BC
Disagree.
Shouldn't tax new builds, but tax vacant, capital gains and land banking.
Holding needs to become less profitable as an investment, but more profitable to build. Make taxes come in 5 years after a new build or something similar
Shouldn’t tax new builds, but tax vacant, capital gains and land banking.
Did you read the article? They're proposing a land value tax which would discourage exactly these things.
Land value tax would apply regardless of if it is developed or not. Therefore people who hold land would be encouraged to either develop it, rent it or sell it - resulting in less vacant homes, more developed property and increased land surplus (therefore lower value of land).
isn't this a good outcome? You and the authors are arguing for the same thing, a land value tax. I don't understand where the disagreement is
I think we might be
I'm a young(er) homeowner in Vancouver, It's a 70 year old house.
I suppose the city would do an averaging thing where they'd say people whose assessments are a 50/50 split between land and improvements will not have a change in their taxes. People whose assessments are mostly based on improvements will have their taxes slashed to near 0, people whose assessments are mostly land will have their taxes nearly double.
My assessment puts almost all the value on the land (95% land, 5% house). So I think we'd be in the nearly doubling group.
We would not sell our house if our taxes doubled. Would we convert our basement to a rental suite? No, probably still not. Would empty nesters? I hope so.
I think I'd support this proposal, but I will say it again, we have to stop paying anyone over the age of 55 to indefinitely postpone their property taxes.
We need to incentivize the construction of housing suitable for elderly empty nesters. So that they can move out of their dangerous houses, and into single level units that they can thrive in.
I appreciate your support despite the negative effects it would have on you.
We need more density and it's not going to come fast enough if sitting on prime land is cheap.