It is if you use the revenues from LVT to build housesSpinningHugo wrote:Willow904 wrote:
The insufficient incentive to build is clearly reflected in the extremely low volume of builds being completed. House prices are a red herring because they are being artificially propped up.
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/cities ... vation-lab" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
That is very much a US perspective@ it isn't the UK problem. Places like Pittsburgh and Scranton have space into which they can expand. London and elsewhere where the demand is doesn't and don't. So an LVT really isn't going to solve our UK problem. We have plenty of space in the UK: just none in the areas people
(a) wish to live
and
(b) is capable of being built on.
You can help with (a) through infrastructure and (B) with deregulation, but an LVT will do nothing. An LVT is useful where, as in much of the US, (a) and (b) aren't the problem.
The idea that there are developers hoarding land is just a lie (one Labour under Miliband used to tell quite often as it spoke to the base: "Evil Capirtalists"). Developers need a bank of land to keep production stable: they can't just buy land as one job ends. Developers land banks just haven't grown.
In the UK there would be fortunes to be made if undevelpped land around London and elsewhere could be built on. Indeed, what is actually needed is a tax to capture that uplift as we deregulate, rather than just handing it over to the lucky landowners.
An LVT is a good thing: but it isn't a housing problem solution at all.
Besides, there is land available in London. I think you are missing the big picture when you say "developers" aren't hoarding land. Developers aren't necessarily the problem:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017 ... nd-banking" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;A 2012 study for the Greater London Authority, by consultants Molior, found that 45% of sites in London with planning permission for new homes were owned by a company which did not build homes. The list includes “developers who do not build”, along with owner-occupiers, historic landowners, government, sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, universities, churches – anyone looking to use land for short-term trading, tax sheltering purposes or simply as a long-term investment.
I mean, I might be missing the point here, but aren't these exactly the kind of people whose behaviour an LVT could nudge into a more productive outlook? At the moment there is a fortune to be made by getting planning permission, which hands all the profit to the landowner and leaves very little scope for add on value by the developer. LVT actually helps genuine developers to....well, develop!