Land Release: "Release to Linden"

I know there are a lot of people out there, who have created their own communities (not the semi-sponsored theme communities) or have chosen a site to build because of it's natural terraforming.

However most of these people don't have the money to maintain large plots of land to keep these areas pristine.

So I propose a "release to Linden" option for selling land in addition to "release to public". Now before you start freaking out about how this can cause griefing, I will say that my current solution is to not be refunded the full value of your land. At most 50%, but probably something more in the range of 25-35%.

In this way, people won't go buying land and releasing to Linden to torture other landowners. And consider the lessened refund as paying towards the Lindens maintaining that land.

This is especially needed in some sims where the Lindens have created some spectacular terraforms but at the same time not protected everything but making it "Governor Linden" owned.

Questions, comments, nitpicks, please post them.

I, too, would like some method for protecting scenery as you describe. But like you, I think that letting the residents have the option could cause serious grief.

I would be willing to sacrifice all money that I spent to buy the land. Just as long as I don't have to pay taxes.

My plot is on a cliff facing an ocean very similar to the picture at the top of this page. (I assume everyone sees the same picture.) Fortunately, for now, I'm very close to the edge of a sim, and I don't really have to worry too much about anyone buying the land and terraforming it.

BUT, next month there might be a sim there. At which point my beautiful ocean view is going to get trashed. I would at least like to keep about 32 meters of ocean, though.

I'm planning on buying all of the land at least 4 meters into the water to help this. But it would be nice to be able to protect part of the ocean without having to pay taxes on it.

I would also suggest a restriction such that if at any time the situation arises where a plot of land is protected in this way but noone owns land within xxx meters (24?, 32?), it reverts to public.

Or, (and I realize this will be a touchy subject) provide a place where a group of residents can petition for certain scenery around their residences to be declared "natural wonders" or "government parks" or something similar. The Lindens can then visit the area, verify that the applicants actually live in the area, and make a judgement call (the touchy part) about whether it really is worth protecting.

I don't want to restrict it so only groups that own a whole sim (or most of it) can make such requests, but there certainly needs to be a minimum number of petitioning residents AND a minimum number of acres that they own within view of the area to be protected.

Maybe the ideas can be combined, where groups can petition to protect scenery, but somebody in the group has to own each piece of land being protected and be willing to sacrifice a percentage of the money they invested in the property.

--
Grim

There should also be a maximum amount of land in a givin period of time that can be allowed to be released to linden control.

But I also second that no money should be refunded for the releasal to the lindens. as the tax break alone would in the long run benifit the person doing this.

Also the land in question should be owned by the petitioner for X amount of days/weeks b4 being considered for this.

That would be a way to somewhat avoid the griefing aspect.
Combine max amount, and number of days owned b4 being able to, along with the petitioner owning land next to it, (usable land larger than 4x4)

Coul;d even add that only half of land in question that has been owned for x number of days can be released to the lindens.

I Don't believe entire plots should be able to do this. As someone could buy an entire sim and get one heck of a tax break by doing this and therefore block others from owning any land in the sim.

Also another side note.....

If "you" own land you can delete other's objects on this land.
By releasing this land it subjects your plot that you wish to save tax $ on and asthetics to littering and "art" that you can't remove.

Think about this b4 you want this, definatly needs to be fine tuned.

As a person of fiarly well off means, I would disagree on the methods.

I do agree that some way of keeping land formed as you are asking would be good.

However taxes are all that keep me in check. I have enough money to cause serious harm with a system like this.

Here is something not as cheap, but which I think would work better.

Being able to 'Lock' land you own. Locked land has reduced taxes, not no taxes. Maybe as low as 25% of normal taxes. It is no build and objects on it decay to public.

Why? Because otherwise people will build their project for a week then lock the land and have cheap taxes on land they actively use. the decay to public prevents that.

The low taxes is because you won't be using as much system resources, you can't build on it or maintain buildings on it. But land is a resource in SL and you are using up that resource and so it should cost you each week.

At least that is how I see it. You would be albe to hold a larger area of land to maintain a border but you couldn't buy up and lock out a sim.

Very good point, I also could do some major harm, well I tried to do good with Rose and gave up lol.

But if it were set "locked" could it be unlocked?

If so then someone could exploit the tax system by locking b4 tax day and unlocking after.

But either way, locked land for a active inworld everyday user could still be dangerous. Could just as easily be exploited.

As land uses les server resources regarding server performance, I feel tax as a whole should be lower on land than it currently is based on object tax. But that was in a previous thread lol a messy one if I recall correctly.

Maybe a no tax land option in any form is really good as a whole, cuz there will always be someone able to exploit a thing put in place to benifit legit good things. :-/

Curse the internet psycology at times lol.

I still think tho that say a sim is split into 16x16 plots and each plot is owned by different users...it would use up more server resources that cause rendering/performance issues than if the same sime was split into larger plots with fewer owners. hence more builds=more primes. More lag and griping over object usage.

So it benifits the servers to have larger plots with less owners per sim

But thats not practical till the world is huge or there are less people wanting land. the latter is unlikely but the world will get bigger.

So I could go either way here, but I say land tax should be reduced globally or on a sliding scale of sorts based on plot size.

A ratio of higher tax per sq/m for smaller plots than larger plots