Finding a new way to manage new land on Zindra
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Cuddles Supply
I am very happy to hear that Zindra will be expanded and that new waterways may be opened along the southern border (please do that). I've made this request before https://feedback.secondlife.com/ldpw/p/add-navigable-regions-or-channels-to-zindra and glad it is being tracked.
However, Most of the available land is held by land barons who are either jacking up prices beyond the reach of most players OR slicing up the sky with sky boxes that are ugly, impact ground level dwellings with shadows, and add load.
It is likely the land barons will gobble up the new land on Zindra exacerbating an already overpriced market. While I understand SL gets their tier each month it would be worth exploring ways in which the new land is available only to users and land barons that are speculating and stacked sky box rentals are prohibited. I am proposing governance somewhere between the strict rules on Bellisaria and the free for all of Mainland. For example,
- Land can only be sold for what it was purchased for. If its sold at $1L per SQM, then speculative pricing would dissapear and might have a depressive impact on land pricing elsewhere on Mainland.
- Prohibit rentals. This would encourage land owners to use the land they bought to live on, put a business or or some other purpose than slicing it up into bits vertically and horizontally.
- After accommodating the residents of Gaeta 1 who might want a parcel on Zindra, allocate some portion of the land to residents as a Linden Home without the strict covenant. Users can choose a 1024 or 2048 parcel as part of thier membership.
- If you must allow land barons, then prohibit prims below 1,000m above the ground to reduce the impact on neighbors.
- For rentals, charge tier not only by the SQM but the altitude of the highest skybox. If a landlord can make 5x tier or more renting vertical space, why not take a healthy nibble of that revenue. Vertical rentals are lost revenue for LL.
Those are just a few ideas and there are others, but the point is to encourage users living and making a business on the new Zindra land and discourage or prohibit land barons buying up the land causing inflationary land prices which results in abandoned, unused land.
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Jennifer Boyle
Prohibiting all rentals is a bridge too far. I own most of a region in Zindra. I have 11 tenants whose rent is L$1 per month. The only reason I charge them is that Casperlet gives me an easy way to know when one has abandoned their residence. I assure you that my activity as a "landlady" makes SL better, not worse.
I suggest that the way to free up land from land barons is to create more of it, saturating the market. In 2008, LL flooded the market with land, driving prices down precipitously. They could do that again with adult land. Adult land is worth far more than G land. The reason is that the supply of G land relative to the demand is greater. The current proposal is a step in the right direction, but what LL should do is keep creating more adult land until it is no longer profitable for land barons to buy it and hold it for resale at high prices. A side effect would be that they would lose a lot of money on land they already owned, which might make them more hesitant about holding large inventories in the future. It might also be possible for LL to throttle the rate at which people could acquire land, e.g., no one can acquire more than one additional region per month. Such a limit would not affect an ordinary resident, but would significantly limit a land baron. LL would still make money on the new land as long as somebody bought it.
Oatmeal Linden
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Hello Cuddles! Thank you for your suggestions! We recognize that the market for Adult rated mainland tends to include high pricing due to the supply imbalance. Discussion about this decision is ongoing on the forums, including speculations about how Residents with real estate businesses may react to increased parcel availability on Zindra.
We are not making this new land publicly available until we are certain that those who are being moved from Gaeta I are satisfied with their new locations. This is expected to take several months' time.
We appreciate your thoughts and ideas, and are marking this post as tracked.
AlettaMondragon Resident
I like these ideas. Journey's comment sums up what Derrick and the other Lindens explained to us at the meeting. However, one thing not to forget: even if the conditions will prevent land barons from acquiring all the new land right away, nothing will stop them from doing so later, for example sometime next year. So Cuddles' suggestions are great, these are exactly the things land barons (and aspiring but less successful mini land barons) capitalize on. Without measures like these, 90 new regions will end up like the rest of Zindra.
ladiablesse100bc Resident
While the "no speculative pricing" idea has some merit, consider that in order to own land (not lease it from someone else) you have to pay property tax to LL directly. Premium Residents get their first 'tier' deferred, but if they want to buy a bigger parcel than that intro tier allows, they have to pay for the added space.
Which means, either you maintain property for yourself (and pay for it, for as long as you're set up in that tier) or you lease it out, either by region or by parcel, hopefully recouping the tier costs and maybe make something on the side. Thus the "land baron" phenomenon - these are RL businesses built around land ownership and leasing. They've set themselves up with enough capital to afford the massive tier costs of owning multiple regions (not parcels, entire regions) which they then lease to the rest of us, somewhere between 'at cost' and 'oh lord that's way too much'. It's a virtual mirror of RL real estate policy, simplified because SL land doesn't require easements, utilities, fire protection, or any of a number of other things the Real World calls for.
Locking land into a 1L = 1m^2 price would turn that parcel into a Linden sink with no possibility of recoup, and it would become "abandoned" as soon as the owner got tired of the tier fees.
Journey Bunny
Just got out of the in-world resident meeting about it. The new land will not be available to anyone except the residents of Gaeta I through the end of this year. The displaced residents are working with concierge-like Linden Lab contacts to get a 1-1 land transfer amoung the new places. Protected areas and waterways will be part of the new land. Gaeta I residents are not required to move to Zindra (can request G or M placement from their concierge) but have first pick of transfer.
Gaeta I residents do not get to expand their land-holdings in the new Zindra location as part of the transfer, it is 1-1 while they are in the exclusive-access period through the end of this year. There'll be options for Gaeta I residents to seek additional Zindra land outside the new area, or to expand (along with everyone else) after this transition period.
LL are discussing internally how to open up the remainder of the land after this period, acknowledging the land baron concerns. A lottery system for purchasing parcels is in discussion, not guaranteed.
LL will do a smaller town hall specifically as an invite-only to individuals and groups that have land on Gaeta 1. These will be sent as personal invitations via notecard from a Linden.