Christopher Flavelle’s recent Business Week article looks at how rising sea levels can affect ownership of newly-submerged land. Part of the problem, of course, is that owners of these parcels want the government (Corps of Engineers, local authorities, somebody!) to use expensive artificial means to preserve or recover their properties, but of course don’t particularly want to pay for the service. Complicating the situation is the public trust doctrine, as applied in the various coastal states, which prohibits private ownership of submerged land. So if the land is recovered, who owns it?
A land value tax won’t prevent land from being submerged, and won’t clarify ownership, but it will importantly change the incentives. The article cites one case where the landowner continues to pay real estate tax [presumably a modest amount, but the article does not say] on the submerged parcel. ‘“It’s Gulf-front property,” says Levenson, who now lives in Tennessee. “Someday it will be valuable.”’
Suppose, instead, that the rental value of land was the sole source of public revenue. The land might someday be very useful, and might have a large rental value, but could never be sold for a high price. End of controversy. The water rises, the owner avoids the taxes by relinquishing the land. Unless the rest of us are obligated to pay to enrich a few coastal owners, this is the just and efficient way to proceed.