Land ownership, value & tax Just Space housing conference November 2017 Land ownership, value & tax Rent sucks away the social product for the benefit of landowners, banks, developers… Owners harvest the benefits of infrastructure & other investments Crossrail 2 would increase house prices by £60bn, while costing only £30bn, says TfL Local authorities need a secure, buoyant, income

Just Space housing conference November 2017 What should JS aim for? Land [and property] value appreciation should be captured for public policy objectives / for the community For social housing For social & physical infrastructure Foster productive investment, not speculation Bring land forward for public development at lowest cost Reduce scope of markets, increase public land & commons Ensure most effective use of land and property in relation to public policy objectives Reduce wealth inequalities  Replace bad taxes: council tax, business rates, stamp duty, capital gains…..

Neal Hudson (For m2 add a 0)

A caution: Reinforcing geographic inequalities Just Space housing conference November 2017 A caution: Reinforcing geographic inequalities Risk of reinforcing disparities between regions, cities, districts within them A redistribution scheme is a pre-requisite for any local taxation regime Until then the channelling of funds to localities via central government may be less evil… …even though the agglomeration fetish channels too much to London. [not a problem unique to LVT; applies equally to London Finance Commission & similar proposals for locally-raised taxes, local income tax, etc]

A caution: tax land (+ “improvements”) Just Space housing conference November 2017 A caution: tax land (+ “improvements”)  LVT incentivises land owners to maximise their exploitation of sites, within the law Pre-supposes a zoning system to specify how land can be used UK system does not use such zoning. Poses a huge problem for valuation: what planning assumptions to make? Are all intensifications “improvements”

So what should we do? Just Space housing conference November 2017 Immediate priorities Compulsory purchase at existing use value Public land to be transferred at existing use value for public interest projects To start with, at least, a property value tax with a re-distribution between areas Easy to compute, could be automated. If Zoopla can do it… Captures the rent from intensely-developed land; use £/m2 x m2 to make under-occupancy transparent Base on existing use value, except… …un-implemented permissions (lagged) …land allocated in plans (lagged) …land under option (not sure?) Replace Council Tax, Stamp Duty, Business rates, + ?

Next steps A working group to progress this Just Space housing conference November 2017 Next steps A working group to progress this J S resources on web site, including workshop reports A reading list, crowd-sourced, is on google drive m.edwards@ucl.ac.uk