[NYguy]

^ Some people wanted to tax the "views" themselves...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/op...iews.html?_r=1

Make Them Pay for Park Views

By MAX FRANKEL
DEC. 30, 2015

NEW YORKERS, and particularly Manhattanites, are wringing their hands about the two dozen or so supertall luxury towers sprouting along the southern edge of Central Park. The builders are charging up to $100 million for apartments that offer helicopter views of lush foliage, jagged skylines, soothing rivers and angelic clouds. They lure the superrich, many with suspect foreign assets, to sky-high mansions. They enrich themselves by exploiting weak zoning rules to pour hideous implants into Manhattan cavities.

Like the braggadocio towers of medieval Florence, these concrete fingers in the sky mar the view for the rest of us for miles around. Maybe new laws and regulations will eventually limit their number and size, but much damage is already done, and the profits they earn are bound to sustain the trend for quite a while. Residents around Prospect Park, in Brooklyn: Beware. Oceanfront Queens: Wanna look like Miami Beach?

Instead of wringing our hands, let’s rub our palms and share in the profits. Let the city impose a relatively simple new tax — officially called a user fee — based on the grandeur of each lofty view. The tax could be duly scaled, like rents, for the height of each unit, and discounted, like theater seats, for undesirable obstructions. Informally, let’s call it the “window tax.”

Roughly speaking, residents would be charged $10 to $15 a month per middle-level window with a clear view of parkland or water, less at lower levels, but maybe $25 above 1,000 feet, with $5 extra for doors that open to terrace landings. Windows that offer what realty agents euphemize as “city views” could be charged half-price. According to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, we could reap at least $1 million a year from each of the giants.

....I should confess that four decades ago, when I was writing editorials for The Times, a group of us briefly suggested a window tax around Central Park to save the neglected, crime-ridden public green; with bankruptcy beckoning, no one noticed, and we let the idea drop.

Now that mid-Manhattan is under vertical assault, a Central Park Vista District, duly defined and refined by experience, could inspire other neighborhoods. In time, Chelsea may like what it learns and form its own Hudson View District. The Miss Liberty Vista District, charging Wall Street’s towers, will not be far behind. The Rockaways in Queens may feel safely remote for the time being, but their boardwalks could shine in an Atlantic View District.

Meanwhile, the city's skyline evolution will continue:


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