AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.09.2004, Qupperneq 45

íslendinga var t.d. heftur í fjötra hafta
árin 1930 til 1960 og á því skeiði
var fyrst spurt um flokksskírteini
og síðan um greiðslugetu. Enn má
nefna úthlutun nýtingarréttar á fisk-
imiðum landsins, en sem kunnugt
er, var kvótum úthlutað á grund-
velli sögulegrar reynslu en þeir eru í
framseljanlegir.
Borgaryfirvöld úthluta lóðum í
sinni eigu og gera leigusamniga við
rétthafa. Rétthafinn byggir hús og er
frjálst að selja húsið og leigusamn-
inginn þar með. Verðið á landinu er
afleidd af verðmæti hússins. Aðferðir
við úthlutun á kvóta hafa verið gagn-
rýndar af mörgum. Einkum hefur
mönnum vaxið j augum að hand-
hafar kvóta geta selt kvóta hæst-
bjóðenda, án þess að ríkið sem
upphaflega átti ráðstöfunarrétt í
umboð landsmanna fái arð af. Að
nokkru leyti má draga hliðstæðu milli
kvóta og úthlutun lóða án endur-
gjalds. Tvennt skilur þó að. í fyrsta
lagi er borgin ekki eini landeigandi í
borginni og þar með er til markaður
fyrir land. Ríkið er hins vegar eitt um
að úthuta kvóta til útgerðar. í öðru
lagi hefur borgin beinar tekjur af
verðhækkun lands þar sem fasteign-
amat er endurmetið m.t.t. markaðs-
verðs fasteigna. Borgin hefur tekjur
bæði af fasteignamati en einnig af
lóðaleigu. Lóðaleiga er nú 0,08% af
lóðamati og skilaði lóðaleiga borginni
um 265 milljónum króna í tekjur.
Nýtt fasteignamat sem til fram-
kvæmda kom árið 2001 leiddi til
verulegrar hækkunar á lóðamati,
eða um 56% meðan íbúðahúsn-
æði hækkaði um 11%. Það er alveg
Ijóst að verð lóða hefur verið töluvert
undir markaðsverði um langt skeið. í
strjálbýlu landi hefur verið lenska að
vanmeta verð á landi og má halda
því fram að strjálbýli í borginni sé ein
afleiðing þess.
Stefna borgaryfirvalda við úthlutun
lóða og lands getur verið afgerandi
um skipulag og alla ásýnd byggða.
Fróm áform í skipulagi verður að
styðja með stefnu í gjaldtöku og
skattlagningu. ■
Taxation and Planning
Sigurður Ármann Snævarr, City Economist
The foundation of economics is
the free choice of the consum-
ers. Economics are founded on
the premise that the consumer
will always seek ways to maximize
his utility, given certain income or
property. This simple view goes
like a red thread through the many
spheres of economics. It can be
useful in examining taxes and the
same applies to planning issues.
Economists have taken part in
planning to some extent and in the
United States economists are as a
rule members of planning teams.
There is also an electronic magazine
Planning and Markets (www-pam.
usc.edu) where economists and
planners meet.
Economic issues have an imp-
ortant influence on location and
the appearance of cities. A well
known example is found in the tax
that William Pitt Junior, then finance
minister of England, imposed on
windows. The owners of houses
with 10 windows had to pay six shil-
lings and the owners of houses with
20 windows should pay 20. This
compelled of course the owners to
brick up the windows in their hous-
es. Income from this tax was small
but for some time daylight became
a scarse commodity in British build-
ings for a while.
An attempt is often made to use
taxation directly to influence cons-
umption. Transport can influence the
density of development. It is clear
that Dr. Benjamín H.J. Eiríksson was
aware of this. In his and professor
Ólafur Björnsson's economic propo-
sals submitted in May 1950, an inc-
rease in the petrol tax was proposed
to, among other things, counteract
suburbanization. At that time the
Hlíðar district was being developed.
Cars and petrol were for decades
the main sources of income for the
State Fund. In 1986 this changed.
In order to facilitate wage agree-
ments the government decided to
reduce the taxes on cars. This res-
ulted immediately in an increase in
car ownership. And the petrol-driven
development expanded up to the
mountains.
Icelandic housing has been
influenced by various loan-regulat-
ions by official housing funds. These
regulations were initiated to ration
the scarce capital that was available
for housing but also to fight inflation.
One strand of this was to lay down
rules regarding the maximum size
you could build to receive loans.
These limits could easily be avoid-
ed by building a lower floor with
reduced floor to ceiling height. Few
people today remember these econ-
omic measures and it has not been
recorded if the suburbanization red-
uced. But one can see the results
in many concrete houses that were
built at that time, for example in the
Selja-district in Reykjavík, where the
floor to ceiling height on the lower
floors of houses is often small.
Poor housebuilders were not just
finding loopholes in regulations des-
igned to fight expansion but also to
fight the road construction tax (gatn-
agerðargjald). The road construction
tax in Reykjavík was based on cubic
metres until the year 1997. One can
look on the cubic metre basis as a
taxaton of floor to ceiling height as
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