So I have a thought on urban blight. One of the truths of crime is violence and illegal drugs go hand in hand. Where these problems congregate is in cheap housing areas, primarily where there are huge numbers of apartments or trailer parks. So my idea is to have a rental income tax directly proportioned to the amount of police work that goes into a given area.
The plan is simple, work off radius. Start with the rental property as the center of the radius. Determine what percentage of the residents had a criminal violence or drug related during the last quarter, and maybe year. If the percentage reaches a reasonable threshold, then the owner of that rental property is subject to a penalty tax. Now go one block out. If the per capita crime rate increases by another reasonable threshold, add more penalty tax. If the rental properties in question do not meet the threshold in and of themselves, they are subject to no penalties, but the main factor you are looking at is not if the cops go to the property in question, but if the residents are the ones involved. You only have to go out about four or five blocks at most, because by this time, the penalty will encroach upon 50-70% of the rental gross income. There's no profit in that, so landlords will actively seek to reduce the number of criminals living in their tenements. For the actual language of the law, I would use something that qualifies anyone who has at least four units capable of supporting a single household. I would definitely include hotels in this, as they can be the source of some of the worst urban blight when they are run as apartments instead of temporary lodging.
It really is a matter of poor stewardship on the part of property owners that allows urban blight to get as bad as it does. So the objective of this is to make them be better stewards of their investments.
The plan is simple, work off radius. Start with the rental property as the center of the radius. Determine what percentage of the residents had a criminal violence or drug related during the last quarter, and maybe year. If the percentage reaches a reasonable threshold, then the owner of that rental property is subject to a penalty tax. Now go one block out. If the per capita crime rate increases by another reasonable threshold, add more penalty tax. If the rental properties in question do not meet the threshold in and of themselves, they are subject to no penalties, but the main factor you are looking at is not if the cops go to the property in question, but if the residents are the ones involved. You only have to go out about four or five blocks at most, because by this time, the penalty will encroach upon 50-70% of the rental gross income. There's no profit in that, so landlords will actively seek to reduce the number of criminals living in their tenements. For the actual language of the law, I would use something that qualifies anyone who has at least four units capable of supporting a single household. I would definitely include hotels in this, as they can be the source of some of the worst urban blight when they are run as apartments instead of temporary lodging.
It really is a matter of poor stewardship on the part of property owners that allows urban blight to get as bad as it does. So the objective of this is to make them be better stewards of their investments.
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