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Comment by pfdietz | Hacker News Reader

I think one could make the case that the government must compensate landowners for putative environmental restrictions. After all, if it's really that important, surely the taxpayers would be willing to pay for it, right? Why make the landowner foot the bill for something that benefits everyone else?

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The right logic is the other way around. Why should the public compensate the land owner for something that also benefits the land owner?

By your logic, restaurant owners should also be compensated for not being allowed to serve spoiled food, and bosses should be compensated for not beating their employees.

If someone buys a piece of land, how does it benefit them if that land is then made unusable? If it's for public benefit, and restrictions for public benefit, then it should be owned by the public. Taking what cost a mans life savings doesn't seem the right way to go to make that happen.

> I think one could make the case that the government must compensate landowners for putative environmental restrictions. After all, if it's really that important, surely the taxpayers would be willing to pay for it, right? Why make the landowner foot the bill for something that benefits everyone else?

If you listen really close, you can hear Henry George spinning in his grave from the existence of this comment.

It would be a useful way to balance the costs vs benefits. If the gov't would put a price on it, I could violate the law here but compensate 100x as much elsewhere.

My town has a law where if a tree is over 10" in diameter, there's a fine of 5k if you cut it down. But actually, it's worse, because if they find out you plan to do this, or did it intentionally, they can continue to fine you arbitrarily and force you to re-plant a tree!

So you may own some land and have approval to build human habitation on it... but the tree prevents you, and you simply cannot do it via any legal means.

Otoh if I could... pay the town 5k, and also permanent preserve say 100 trees elsewhere... I could use my own land. I love trees as much as the next one, but it's just a huge risk to allow them to grow on my land cause once they pass that threshold, I irrevocably lose control of land I've paid for and continue to pay a lot of tax on.

It's also funny that if your enemy owns land, and you "help" his trees grow that thick without him knowing, property he planned to use as say an ultimate frisbee field will be permanently unusable for him, with no way out (except begging the city council, etc. and other behavior which is indistinguishable from bribery (money or psychologically))

What happens if the tree dies on its own?

Depends on if they find the circumstances... suspicious.

I am not sure how much surveillance they do - in reality for large lots this restriction may not hold, since trees can disappear at night, be chipped up, etc. But for people in the suburbs, to cut one you need to get a crew in, and there are probably reporting requirements. Also the neighbors love to get involved.

But I do wonder if a tree imperceptibly had branches die, be removed, and then just gradually shrunk over time?

A lot of these laws don't cause much harm in a pre-surveillance world. But once there are full cameras on everything, seeing how they apply at 100% enforcement can be scary. But by that point there are defenders for each one, so they hardly change.

The way people do it is to hammer in a nail that poisons the tree.

The tree dies, and needs to be cut down because it's dangerous to leave standing

A copper nail, specifically (drill a hole first).

Some jurisdiction will make you replace the tree in that case, just to avoid this sort of mechanism.

Yeah but the tree only has to be that diameter at final size. You can plant a dozen tiny trees too close then let them stunt or choke each other out

Some jurisdictions seem to be attempting to counter this sort of thing, and an aspect is: if you can't do it properly, we will, and send you the bill at our chosen rates. And we are going to check.

My city also has a similar law for trees and I think it is the wrong approach. I think it incentivizes people not to grow trees since you might not be able to take them out later if needed. Instead we should have some sort of property tax discount per large tree or something.

Similarly, if you discover some endangered species on your property, current law encourages you to bulldoze it immediately before anyone else finds out.

Similar if your building has features that might get it designated as historically significant.

Indeed. Best to destroy old buildings and pave over natural ecosystems, just in case. This is the way of perverse incentives.

Oh, and when building new buildings, make them as unremarkable and boring as possible, so they won't become historic in the future. Why take the chance? Indeed, make them ugly so the government might decide to pay you to get rid of them.

That's exactly what Hawaii does. You can deduct $3000 from your taxes per exceptional tree. https://taxfoundation.org/blog/exceptional-tree-deduction/

You'd claim large losses for being prevented from placing a toxic waste dump on your property. I'd not want to pay for that.

They already benefit from it though? Eg. Wetlands ease flooding during hurricanes, and quality of life improvements by being close to nature without pollution

I could see a one time payment when the restriction is first added, but once it's there, that's priced into the value of the property, and influences who will buy it

Why should tax payers foot the bill for somebody who wants land by the wetlands because they're an avid birder?

I too could get behind a one time payment. That would hopefully prevent landowners deliberately destroying the environment just to prevent it becoming protected.

It might even start a new class of landowner who buy uninteresting land, then cultivate lots of nature and wildlife, then make a profit when the government designates it a nature reserve.

I can't find the article where I read it, but an interesting thing about the environment is that it's connected and we need it to stay alive.

Texas is a low service state, so I don't think they'd be interested in subsidizing you unless you want to drill.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/05/0...

I was just reading about a converse case that involved public land that was effectively "landlocked" by private land. The private landowners had assumed exclusive access to the public land. The case was made that their private land value should be adjusted commensurate with the additional public land value, since they were the only ones with access.

With a «right to roam» law this isn’t a problem. Most land around me is private, but with the right to roam I can move over private land as long as it is not farmland or someone’s house property (garden, parking lot etc). You can also move over grazing land as long as you remember to close the gate and you can move over farmland in winter time. You can also walk through people’s garden if needed to access trails etc. usually land owners have no problem with this and works together with local groups to maintain trails and access to trails. Granted, there’s not very much good farm land here, mostly mountains.

Out of curiosity, where are you located geographically? In the US, property rights generally extend to the right to exclude others.

Norway.

This is the crux of environmental misalignment in our system. There is not actual tradeable value for environment. Most importantly, how to set a price for a view? In some cases we have comparison for a tourist economy where we value the benifit of a view, but intrinsically we have no way to measure the value of a: Pristine forest Beautiful view Clean lake Healthy aquifer Free space for camping, etc. Future worth?

A carbon tax would put a price on one aspect, no? Same with various EPA fines. It seems like we have mechanisms to do so, it just comes down to whether we leverage them.

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