Site Tax Publicized by Ralph Nader

Nadine Stoner

[Reprinted from GroundSwell, 2000]

Ralph Nader, formally nominated as U.S. Greens Party candidate for President at their national convention in Denver in June 2000 is favorable to the site value tax, reports Alanna Hartzok, activist Greens member. Hartzok, of Scotland, PA provided a brochure, "The Earth Belongs to Everyone", for distribution at the Greens Convention in Denver, and it was distributed from a table staffed by Allen Butcher of Denver. (The brochure will be an insert in the Sept.-Oct. 2000 GroundSwell).

In April 2000, Hartzok emailed to GroundSwell a download from the website, sfbg.com, of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Parts of the article by Ralph Nader, "The decline of urban civilization: the sprawl years," are quoted below.

"... It comes as no surprise that one of the major factors exacerbating sprawl is the automobile. Still, we subsidize the use of automobiles with highway budgets and tax subsidies for parking facilities. We also pay for automobiles with military expenditures that ensure the flow of oil from foreign lands and underwrite the cleanup costs of gasoline and oil spills that harm the ecosystem.

"Competition between local jurisdictions in metropolitan regions also fuels urban sprawl. 'Favored quarter' suburbs are using zoning rules to keep out low-income residents and minorities -- while reaping a disproportionate share of government money for new schools, highways, sewer lines, and public services. So while the city remains critical to a region's economic fortune, competition among towns ends up draining the city of its vitality and turning it into the region's poorhouse. And people begin to move away.

"The end result? This exodus forces outlying suburbs to build new infrastructures and raise tax rates to crushing levels. According to Maryland governor Parris Glendening, every new classroom costs $90,000; every new mile of sewer line costs roughly $200,000; and every mile of single-lane road costs at least $41 million. . . .

"Fortunately, citizens from Portland to the Twin Cities are introducing some effective remedies.

• Regional tax-base sharing offers some hope for metropolitan areas to more equitably share tax dollars and allocate infrastructure costs, and thus to reduce the pressures propelling sprawl.
• Site-value property taxation may also spark greater development in cities by taxing land, not buildings. Unlike traditional taxation -- which rewards developers who put up cheap, tacky housing and strip malls -- site-value taxation gives developers the incentive to build gracious, durable buildings. Allowances for affordable housing, however, need to be part of site-value schemes.
• Several Bay Area communities have adopted "Urban Growth Boundaries" (UGBs) to channel new development into areas with existing infrastructure, so that open spaces and farmlands can be preserved. ...
• Eliminating subsidies for new suburban highways, sewer lines, and schools might also help arrest haphazard development. ..."