Back to the property tax. It's what the towns historically had available to tax and, if you ask the listers in your town, it is clear that rich people don't live in double-wides and poor people don't live in palaces. Our culture, our capitalist society, is not very good at saving that which is rare or capable of valuing that which is free. If Vermont land had no carrying charge, no property tax liability, anyone could own it. The land grab and sell would put the Florida land boom of the twenties in the shade.
Memories are so short.
The reason we have Act 250 and Water Resources Board regulations is due to what was happening thirty years ago in Windham County. The drive to exploit undeveloped land is boundless. Land in Vermont has value. It should be taxed because if those who own it don't understand its value it will not be valued. The potato fields that became Leavittown will never return.