A modest proposal for affordable food/housing

[mindstalk]

Food stamps are so redistributionist. Would it not be better instead to require every new grocery store to sell 10% of its food at affordable prices, to low-income people? Putting the cost of food welfare entirely on newly opened stores and their higher-income customers, while everyone else contributes nothing? Having the supply of food welfare be linked tightly to the opening of new grocery stores?

What, you think that's insane? Well, that's exactly what the US's affordable housing policy largely is. Inclusionary Zoning (IZ): making new housing set aside some units as "affordable", paid for by a mix of the builder and the other tenants in the building, while older apartments and homeowners contribute nothing (but "progressive" homeowner-voters can feel like they're Doing Something, by making "developers" pay.)

Contrast with raising property taxes -- or beyond the city level, sales or income taxes -- a bit, to fund various housing vouchers a la Section 8. You could raise them a little bit to fund as many vouchers as affordable units would be created under IZ, or you could raise taxes more to fund many more vouchers, not limited by the rate of construction.

Comments

[brin_bellway]

I believe this is called "price-matching", and it's what Canada does instead of having food stamps.

(I'm mostly joking. Mostly.)

[ndrosen]

Raising the property tax to fund affordable housing would, in my humble opinion, be another poor idea, as it would make housing more expensive for everyone, in order to fund affordable for the poor, or those of them lucky enough to qualify. What should be done, I submit, is to replace the current property tax with a tax on the value of land.

Currently, someone who erects an apartment building has to pay property taxes on the building, so the tax is passed on to tenants; an apartment building will not be constructed until rents have risen high enough to cover the building tax, as well as a return on the cost of construction, and the costs of maintaining the building. Someone who buys a vacant lot, and makes people waste time and gasoline commuting past it, pays little in property tax, because there is no building, and the land is likely to be underassessed.

Reforming the property tax would discourage land speculation, instead of punishing the creation of housing. Also, we should end snob zoning, another obstacle to sufficient, and cheaper, housing.

You may want to look up “land value taxation” and “Henry George.”

[mindstalk]

Hey, I'm all for land tax, don't need to look it up.

[ndrosen]

I’ve been reading your entries about paratransit. One advantage of land value taxation is that it would encourage infill development, by taxing the owners of vacant lots and lots with decaying buildings of little value as much as the owners of neighboring lots with houses, shops, office and apartment buildings, or factories on them. This would make it easier for people either to walk to their destinations, or to use mass transit, instead of needing private cars.

[mindstalk]

True!