A number of people have pointed out a number of good reasons why dealing with this concern does not, and probably should not, require a law to be passed. Laws often have unintended consequences, due to variations in meaning and interpretation as we all know. Any law created to address this *must* be enforced in the future, so needs to be clear, specific and unambiguous - leaving as little room as possible for misinterpretation or loopholes that allow for favouritism or the perception of it or the use of the law to harass one or more citizens.
Formulas and sliding scales of what is allowed must be monitored by someone, enforced by someone - I am guessing the odds of that happening long term and consistently are fairly slim, considering CDSs' track record with such long-term and infrequently needed laws. I could lay out a whole bunch of 'what if' situations that demonstrate potential problems but I think with a little thought most of you can identify a few without my help. Even to say that 'no one can complain if its a law - they knew when they bought' is somewhat laughable; we can't get some members of gov't to read or remember laws, some that they themselves debated and voted on - yet we expect all citizens will pay attention to this one?
Either way, I think any law about this will
- deter some new residents from settling here,no matter how slim the chance of them needing to forfeit land is
-create unnecessary work for the Executive arm in monitoring and applying,and/or the SC in interpreting and settling disputes
- 'reward' citizens who buy/pay tier on extra parcels to help maintain the financial integrity of CDS by insisting they surrender some of those parcels, more a punishment than a reward
-create a whole new area of potential ill-will and dispute around surrendered land e.g. how will the Executive ensure that only new citizens can buy surrendered parcels
So if not a law, then what? It's been pointed out that two factors are at play in current limits - number of parcels and sq. metres owned. The sq metres owned is the 'financial risk' element and potential threat of inability to pay tier to LL on a region that was no doubt a concern back when the limits were first imposed. I think a few people have pointed out that the current financial reserves of CDS ensure that the departure of any one citizen would not result in financial difficulty resulting in a loss of a region. This suggests that removing the sq metre restrictions makes sense.
The number of parcels is more the concern that RA needs to consider. In CDS land ownership = citizenship and ensuring opportunities for citizenship. It has been mentioned already that ownership can be used to manipulate how many citizens there are and who they are but the reality of CDS is that, excepting some blips around some hotly battled elections the number of citizens in CDS has hovered around the 75 mark, give or take, for a number of years.
A simple solution to the ' but there must be land for new citizens ' is for the Executive to remove 12 parcels from the market - they can be a variety of sizes and locations, and only list them for sale if and when most other parcels are occupied. Those parcels should only be available for purchase by new citizens, fairly simple to enforce by announcement of them going on the market and that they are not for general purchase. Since break even is
in the 70 to 80 % occupancy range, removing 0.5% of parcels from the market is not a huge impact on the bottom line. Then you can remove limits on number of parcels completely, or raise it to a substantial number while maintaining limits on some types of parcel in some areas. To quote Sudane :"The benefits are that there will always be land available, and that the citizens of the CDS are free to support the community financially to the maximum of their ability." AND this leaves responsibility for land management to the Executive, where it belongs, without adding a layer of law that will make flexibility and response to market changes more difficult.
Calli