Gov. Jared Polis is pushing Colorado’s recently formed Commission on Property Tax to study potential adoption of an obscure taxation system used in less than two dozen U.S. cities that he believes could spur construction of new housing and improvement to existing buildings.
The land value tax is a system where property taxes are assessed only upon the land that someone owns and not based upon the value of the buildings on that land. Proponents of what also is called the “Georgist” system of property taxation — named after its most prominent early American proponent, late 19th-century author Henry George — argue that it can spur more efficient use of urban property and incentivize building upon it.
If that theorem sounds like it meshes with the Democratic governor’s land-use and affordable-housing aspirations — essentially, boosting the stock of existing housing, particularly in the multifamily space, to bring down sky-high housing costs through competition — it does. When the Legislature reconvenes for its 2024 session on Wednesday, Polis and his legislative allies will push a package of bills seeking to incentivize and, in some cases, use mandates to boost housing density in urban areas to spur greater development of residences.
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