[Liberty Tree Surgeon]

Well, when you move to a place called "The Woodlands", which was full of lovely East Texas piney woods, and then those woods get wiped in favor of yet another shopping center, once might start to consider the benefit of that tax. Remember, this would be a local issue, and as such, pretty much up to the will of the community.

It just pains me to go to work in the morning, admiring the trees, and then come home at night to a bunch of red dirt.

And to prevent it individually, I'd have to buy land myself and then pay the property taxes for the privalege of not developing it. Not a good answer either.

LTS

[1Old Pro]

Thanks for your thoughts. What if your payment/tax didn't preserve this spot next to your hmoe but instead was spent on the other side of town on a large parcel next to your town leaders home?

[aShepard]

Up here in New England, they support towns buying up old farms for "open spaces" under the guise that the cost to buy the open scace is less than what the town would spend to increase the public infrastructure to accomodate incremental residents if the land was subdivided. So the current resident taxes go through the roof, instead of increasing tax roles on the potential build-out. Check the math, it doesn't make an ounce of sense.

Then our town spent a $million to build a gazebo on top of a polluted small pond, next to town hall, for "beautification".

I'm still trying to figure out the cost per duck!

[Greeklawyer]

The local gov buy the property.
The tax base needs expanding or
in order to attract business, the property is leased (99yrs)
to a development for some atractions, wal mart or mall

The town gov gets their kickbacks and they then control
who develops what
How about just buy certain rights of the property?
For example pay the owner to agree to restrict the property to
certain types of single family homes with a minimum acerage per home (no zero lots)

You could even have monotony codes for those sinister
homeowner associations.
There are ways to do this within the constitutional confines