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How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

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Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#81

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #66
asokoloski wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Taxing property encourages speculation and under-development. Showing an alternative, Pennsylvania has several towns and cities with a split-rate tax, which means that there's a higher tax on the assessed land value than on the assessed value of the property. Taking this to an extreme, you can tax only the land value, not the property, providing a very strong incentive to make the best use of desirable land.…

> And not just that, but typical property taxes provide a disincentive to even improve your own property, since you'll pay more tax. They encourage blight. A good old wealth tax on everything would fix that.

Not really. If a wealth tax is implemented, you'll be amazed at how soon everyone moves their wealth outside of the US. You'd be very hard pressed to tax wealth outside the US.

Distributing the tax across property, a progressive capital gains tax, a progressive corporate tax, and a small wealth tax is a much better option than a flat and high wealth tax.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#82

Post by ericd »

greggman2 wrote: post #79
ladberg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It sounds like most of the people here want prop 13 repealed but from your suggestion that would just make every pay the high tax so the "people often don't because the taxes would increase to a point where it wouldn't be worth it." would be true for everyone always right?

At least in SV, the older people are much, much more active in local politics, probably because they're not busy with a job/kids. When I was on a sabbatical/funemployed, I used to go to city council meetings pretty frequently, especially for meetings discussing one of these anti-development laws that are currently on the books, and it would be like 3-6 of us on the pro-development side, typically skewing on the younger side (though there were some exceptional older homeowners who would argue for our side), and then 50+ retirees on the anti-development side.

In the example I'm thinking of, it was a meeting about a law that was due to expire that limited new development to 5 stories, and effectively limited average height to 3-4 stories due to floor area ratios, and simultaneously put strict limits on the number of housing units you could build per acre. Mind you, this expiration would affect just the dense downtown core around the train station, not the vast majority of the city, which is zoned single family. They still hated the idea, it'd cause too much traffic. One lady gave an impassioned speech about how the drive to their second home in Tahoe, which used to take 4 hours now took 6-8 on Friday due to traffic. This came right after a speech from someone who was about to lose their primary residence due to rent spiking. I don't know how she was able bring herself to follow that, but she certainly tried.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#83

Post by function_seven »

baroffoos wrote: post #69
sp332 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your self-driving car going to take up less space or something?

Rather than pay to park your car you can just have it go get stuck in traffic and slowly crawl around in circles utilizing the free "parking" provided by the roads. Since electric cars do not need to idle they should be able to roll around slowly fairly efficiently. As horrific as that idea sounds you just know that will be the reality until there is a law against it.

I think I'd rather minimize the time my self-driving car spends out on the road where it can get hit by a dumb human driver, rot in the sun, wear out the tires, and accumulate grime.

I'd just send it to the nearest Sears parking lot (and instruct it to attempt to find shade?)

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#84

Post by 55555 »

pardavis wrote: post #77
baroffoos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would only be fair to put the cost of constructing roads next to that number since those are mindblowingly high as well. The first result I saw was that a 6 lane highway costs about $7-11 million per mile and that doesn't count the cost of all the cars that use it where as the first stat would count the train. I also assume that steel tracks last a lot longer than road surface which has to be rebuilt every…

For reference, in the United States, the amount of money spent on road maintenance per state controlled mile looks something like this: * $2,700 in Alabama * $80,000 in Massachusetts * $84,000 in California * $208,000 in New Jersey https://reason.org/policy-study/23rd-annual-highway-report/m...

For context, making a new 2-lane road costs 2-5 million USD per mile.

I didn't realize roads were so expensive.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#85

Post by dawnerd »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #8
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…

> 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…

Oregon has a similar issue as well. You’ve got houses that are really old yet worth half a mil plus and they’re paying basically nothing. Except here the tax isn’t recalculated on sale so newer homes are not “worth” as much at resell time.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#86

Post by jumpingmice »

yonran wrote: post #49
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...

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%... )

That's so stupid. I've never met a real estate concern that had ANY employees. The fact that a building is owned by 1 guy who outsources everything does not make it a "small business".

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#87

Post by dba7dba »

cannaceo wrote: post #78
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…

I have a friend in parking in LA. People tend to think these parking lot operators are dimwitted but they're extremely intelligent, shrewd businessmen. Its a cutthroat industry with deep mafia ties. You can effectively use control of parking lots to squeeze all the margins out of local businesses such as restaurants.

Frank McCourt was a really really hated owner of Dodgers for a few years until 2012. When Frank McCourt sold Dodgers to Magic Johnson led group in 2012, he held onto 50% of the Dodger Stadium parking lot.

Yup, a guy sold Dodgers for a few billion bucks, but he still knew to hold onto the parkint log.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1120695-dodgers-sale-det...

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#88

Post by zamfi »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #62
yardie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> parking lots -- even on land worth $10M+ -- often pay property taxes as little as $100-$1000 a year (thanks to Prop 13). Commercial property is also exempt under Prop 13?! What a screwed up system. I kind of understand if it applies to primary residences. I think it's ridiculous it also applies to commercial property as well.

It's insane. And, yes, it does. Same narrative to justify it. We can't increase taxes on poor old grandpa's deli. He'll never be able to compete with all the other delis that also have to pay rising taxes. Think of poor grandpa! Meanwhile, you've got landlords owning those shitty 6-unit dingbat apartments they built in the 70s for $100k, paying taxes of $1k per year, charging rents or $3k/month for each unit. All the…

I agree with what you say completely, but this:

> that will be taxed at a lower capital gains rate -- of which the state will see almost nothing

...is not quite correct; California does not have a special reduced cap gains tax rate like the Feds.

But this does not make the whole setup any less ridiculous.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#89

Post by jandrese »

55555 wrote: post #84
pardavis wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For reference, in the United States, the amount of money spent on road maintenance per state controlled mile looks something like this: * $2,700 in Alabama * $80,000 in Massachusetts * $84,000 in California * $208,000 in New Jersey https://reason.org/policy-study/23rd-annual-highway-report/m...

For context, making a new 2-lane road costs 2-5 million USD per mile. I didn't realize roads were so expensive.

When land is expensive roads are expensive.

Re: How Much Money Do Parking Lots Make?

#90

Post by hnick »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #80
batiudrami wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand better public transport, then. It's the solution for every other city in Australia. The CBD shouldn't be for cars.

Sydney has pretty decent public transport, at least by Australian standards, and most certainly compared to any US city of comparable size. I never park my car in central Sydney on a weekday, and have never been particularly inconvenienced by that cost.

Yes after 5pm weekdays and on the weekend there are plenty of flat rate places for $15 or about $10 more towards the north end of town.

I just wish they'd build more parking near some of the suburban train stations. It's usually OK far from the CBD, but a park and ride strategy would definitely help at places 15-20 minutes out. Mascot and Green Square have both gone through a lot of development, are expecting a lot of new people, and still have tiny roads with no dedicated parking near stations.

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