[idiotsecant]

reducing or removing property taxes for legitimate historic properties seems like a good thing to me. I don't want every community to look like a slightly randomized version of every other community. Historic stuff is interesting. If we can encourage it to stay interesting and not get torn down to build a TGI fridays that sounds like a good thing to me. How much did your crusade to tax local historic structures save the average taxpayer? How many of those places will be lost?

[jeffbee]

None of the covered properties in Berkeley are legitimate landmarks of genuine architectural merit or historical importance. Every one of them was established by flim-flam for the purpose of claiming the tax abatement. Over the years this lovely property claimed more tax breaks than any other. Judge for yourself whether the public interest was served.

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.8567746,-122.2550107,3a,60y,...

[idiotsecant]

Seems like the problem is that the system is bad at identifying historic properties with genuine value.

[jeffbee]

Have you heard the news about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

[idiotsecant]

This phrase is stupid and it gets repeated so much. It's pure vapid mangement consultant dreck. Imagine I told you that my car was running kind of hot and I needed to replace old coolant to make the system work better. If you told me 'ThE PuRpOsE oF a SyStEm Is WhAt It DoEs' I would think you were missing some braincells.

Sometimes the purpose of a system is what it's supposed to do and it needs some small maintenance to make it work right.

[stephen_cagle]

Strong disagree. If something has value, then the community should decide to preserve it as a group or the state should preserve it for us. I suspect that most of these schemes are some form of tax avoidance for wealthier people. The idea that some politically connected and likely wealthy group of people need some sort of help "preserving" historic buildings seems... dubious.

[idiotsecant]

What do you think the community deciding to preserve it looks like? The government is the community. It's made out of the community. It's elected by the community. What mechanism are you suggesting?

[kiba]

Then they should be owned by governments outright. Provided that the community consent to it and are aware of the cost.

Government provides crucial services that increases land value, offsetting any losses in tax revenue through public utility. Perhaps the same thing can happen with historical buildings.

However, let us note that cities are for living in. It is not a museum.

Ultimately, only the public can determine the balance of concerns to be struck.