[juujian]

It's easy, just charge all property owners for sales surface area. It messes with lots of things, water table, flooding, generates heat. All things that create cost for a community. That's how Berlin decided to tackle the issue.

[fasthands9]

I also assume Berlin does not have high parking requirements.

For instance, this ordinance in NC says you need one parking space for every 300 sq feet of a store. So the average 30,000 sq foot grocery store would need 100 spots, at least.

Without getting rid of requirements like these the stores will not be able to remove spaces if they wanted. I very much like land value tax (which sounds similar in effect to what you are proposing) but you need the zoning flexibility first.

https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/swansboro/latest/swans...