A tax category I’d like to see

I was walking by three different vacant lots on my way to work. One is used as a parking lot occasionally, but for most days of the month lies vacant. The other lots are fenced in, and there are a few other lots I know of along alternative routes to the metro, also fenced in.
Anyway, I was thinking, it would be great if these lots were community gardens. About half of part of the lots get full sun. Even better a couple have southern exposure. A way to encourage this could be a reduced property tax rate for owners who lease green space to gardeners. In the city center, where there are more apartments, condos and townhomes with non-existent yards there is a demand for greenspace. If there was an environment that encouraged this sort of land use, it would be great.

6 thoughts on “A tax category I’d like to see”

  1. Would be nice, however I’m sure that once dcra gets ahold of it, the licensing, permitting, etc would quickly. Maybe just a different class of managed, unimproved land. imho, well kept land w/o a building should not be considered vacant as it is today. The downside, it would probably encourage people to raze a lot of old buildings.
    -Mike

  2. Your 1st sentence appears incomplete. I take it that you might mean DCRA will screw it up with restrictions?

  3. There is a documentary movie coming soon at the E Street Cinemas about radical Los Angeles urban gardeners who uncover a local government ring of corruption. It’s called ‘The Garden’. We should go see it and learn how to be rebel gardeners:

    http://www.blackvalleyfilms.com/

    I plan on planting my castor bean plans to be an agro-ter’rist.

  4. there’s already enough creativity in the real property tax area. Too much Alice in Wonderland at OTR

    rr446

  5. It’s a good idea buuuutttttttt,
    heck DCRA can’t even figure out that a once classified vacant property is occupied, despite being informed with documents. I’m told that only one guy works on it.

    esse

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