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How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

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Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#41

Post by Miner49er »

andys627 wrote: post #15

I like this billboard from the good old days https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Ev... . It says: "Everybody works but the vacant lot. I paid $3,600 for this lot and will hold till I get $6000. The profit is unearned increment made possible by the presence of this community and enterprise of its people. I take the profit without earning it." These lots produce negative externalities to society a…

This quote is from Henry George, who advocated for Georgism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#42

Post by fortran77 »

ladberg wrote: post #18
addajones wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for this knowledge. Where can I find more info regarding Prop 13 and the parking lot property taxes? Thank you!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 I feel like the intuition behind prop 13 is similar to rent control but for land owners. Basically it freezes the price owners have to pay in taxes, so if the price of land goes up dramatically, people who have owned the land for longer pay far less in taxes. For example, person A bought a house in SF 25 years ago for 300k. Person B buys an identical house…

Under Prop 13, property taxes can go up 2%/year. So he's not paying 5x because the 300,000 house's property tax has been increasing every year by 2%.

It's hard to me to imagine why you would be so evil as to want to force a person out of a home because some dot-com-specuvestor bought a 300,000 home next door to some little old lady for 3,000,000 dollars and caused her property tax to go up 10x. Prop 13 is necessary. What we need to do is BUILD MORE HOUSES.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#43

Post by goobynight »

andys627 wrote: post #15

I like this billboard from the good old days https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Ev... . It says: "Everybody works but the vacant lot. I paid $3,600 for this lot and will hold till I get $6000. The profit is unearned increment made possible by the presence of this community and enterprise of its people. I take the profit without earning it." These lots produce negative externalities to society a…

Denver is littered with surface parking lots. This is due to the relatively recent spike in value.

There is no way you could buy the property now and operate a parking lot, but they got in when it was cheap, so it's all profit now.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#44

Post by rtkwe »

WorldMaker wrote: post #38
rtkwe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For parking lots it's a catch-22 of the car centric city design, they're required for businesses to function but you can't charge them the true value of the land because making enough money to cover those property taxes would make parking prohibitively expensive. The real solution is proper public transit of course but that's hard and expensive so we get bandaids instead.

Proper public transit wouldn't look as hard or expensive if the true value of the land was taxed on parking.

It's a phase change problem, on this side we're stable (ish) and on the other side we're stable but the transition period would take years and a lot of spending so we stay in the current state. Doing it slowly and safely requires patience from voters and a willingness to suffer the painful transition period where people in the city are paying more taxes without the problem being solved. Patience is a big issue with getting long term projects done in the US, there's always political hay to be made attacking any project with long term pay offs because of the delay between new laws/taxes/construction starting and it ending. Plus it's way more appealing to scrap and change the project to "put their stamp on it" so it's Mayor Bob's revitalization project not Mayor Alice's.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#45

Post by OrangeMango »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #6

Self-driving cars will render these obsolete

> Self-driving cars will render these obsolete

They already are [1]:

> If you park your car on the lower level of the Millennium Lakeside Garage under Maggie Daley Park, you might feel like you've just pulled into a subterranean car dealership. > Rows of new and used Volkswagens and Hondas—nearly 400 in total—fill a lot of the space. You might spot a worker painting a Jetta with a spray gun. The level above has a more nautical feel, with dozens of empty boat trailers. > Yet the garage still isn't close to full, a problem for the international joint venture that paid $370 million in 2016 to lease it and three other city-owned garages under Millennium and Grant parks. With 9,176 spaces, the garages constitute the largest underground parking system in the country. At 3.8 million square feet, it's almost as big as Willis Tower. > It's actually too big, which is why Rick West, the executive who runs the garages, is exploring creative ways to fill excess space in Lakeside, the easternmost and largest garage, with 3,850 spaces. He'd like to convert part of it into warehouse space, even hiring a brokerage to market the property to logistics firms. But he hasn't landed any tenants yet. > "I'm really looking at anything and everything having to do with mobility—that could be mobility of people or mobility of things," says West, CEO of Millennium Garages. "How do I keep this asset relevant for the next many, many decades?"

[1] https://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/prime...

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#46

Post by lonelappde »

Miner49er wrote: post #41
andys627 wrote: post #15

I like this billboard from the good old days https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Ev... . It says: "Everybody works but the vacant lot. I paid $3,600 for this lot and will hold till I get $6000. The profit is unearned increment made possible by the presence of this community and enterprise of its people. I take the profit without earning it." These lots produce negative externalities to society a…

This quote is from Henry George, who advocated for Georgism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

It appears that the quote is about George, not by George.

"George advocated for Georgism" is a tautology :-)

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#47

Post by ladberg »

jedberg wrote: post #30
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #2

At least in California, especially in Los Angeles, it's really important to factor in that parking lots -- even on land worth $10M+ -- often pay property taxes as little as $100-$1000 a year (thanks to Prop 13). You buy a parking lot, sit on it as the value of land increases (paying effectively 0% in taxes), then you eventually sell, paying only a capital gains tax (much lower than income). I only bring up California…

There's a partial repeal of Prop 13 on our 2020 ballot. [0] It would make commercial properties no longer subject to Prop 13. [0] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Tax_on_Commercial_and_Ind...

That's great! I'd image that could alleviate a ton of housing issues and government funding issues in California. Does anyone know the chances of it passing?

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#48

Post by jedberg »

ladberg wrote: post #47
jedberg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a partial repeal of Prop 13 on our 2020 ballot. [0] It would make commercial properties no longer subject to Prop 13. [0] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Tax_on_Commercial_and_Ind...

That's great! I'd image that could alleviate a ton of housing issues and government funding issues in California. Does anyone know the chances of it passing?

There's no polling on it yet. I suspect it will be close because there are a lot of very rich people who will lose a lot of money if this passes.

Property tax is basically a wealth tax. Most wealthy people don't want their wealth taxed. They'll pay millions to defeat this. I wouldn't be surprised if they made ads that straight up lie and tell people their property tax will go up and some BS about farms.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#49

Post by yonran »

jedberg wrote: post #30
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #2

At least in California, especially in Los Angeles, it's really important to factor in that parking lots -- even on land worth $10M+ -- often pay property taxes as little as $100-$1000 a year (thanks to Prop 13). You buy a parking lot, sit on it as the value of land increases (paying effectively 0% in taxes), then you eventually sell, paying only a capital gains tax (much lower than income). I only bring up California…

There's a partial repeal of Prop 13 on our 2020 ballot. [0] It would make commercial properties no longer subject to Prop 13. [0] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Tax_on_Commercial_and_Ind...

The split roll initiative likely exempts many parking lots from reassessment at least until June 2025 since they can count as “small business” (fewer than 50 employees) (https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/initiatives/pdfs/19-0008%20%...)

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#50

Post by thaumasiotes »

magashna wrote: post #31
thaumasiotes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is also the reason you see single family homes with front and back yards like 1000 meters away from sky scrapers in Los Angeles and San Jose. Those homes are paying property taxes of like $400 a year, and most of them are being rented out. It's not poor old ladies living in them that don't want to leave the neighborhood they lived their whole lives in, but gentrified under their feet into some urban monster. I…

So it's even worse. They're charging as much as possible for slum lord services.

No? Doing maintenance is fine. Doing upgrades isn't.
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