What tax rate do you think a club like LACC should pay?
This is as complex of a question as there is, and will touch on every aspect of political philosophy, so I don't want to have some rote equation, but I will try to actually answer your question.
Any community has an existing tax base. One could argue forever about the role of gov't, and what the size of that tax base should be. To me, that's a political issue that communities solve democratically, and people vote at the ballot and with their feet.
To me, taxes should be as low as possible, insofar that the community can provide reasonable safety and the means to human flourishing for all it's residents. Flourishing means education, transportation, general welfare, recreation (
most people play muni golf, after all); generally, all of the things that we gain and save on by by living together and pooling our money rather than living apart (this is the same principal behind the 501c7).
The reason why this situation is so problematic, is that our many of our cities are
not providing the means to human flourishing right now, because young people are looking at home prices approaching 25x median annual income after taxes, effectively meaning that any 30 year loan would be a young person's entire paycheck.
So why do property taxes matter? Property taxes are effectively opt-in wealth taxes. Property taxes are basically the only taxes where people can, by definition, afford to pay them. They act to prevent land hoarding. If reasonable property taxes become unaffordable to the property owner, that means that the land is not being used to create value. The natural progression would be to increase the efficient use of the property's value (that is, the home becomes a duplex to generate additional income).
Thus, when we see enough residents to form an effective political coalition regarding reasonable access to property-ownership (a means to human flourishing) then we should expect them to target raising the rates of property taxes. This is why we are talking about raising property taxes, and not, say, income or sales taxes. Note: I basically agree with them here. I know plenty of folks making very good money, who still can barely afford a
starter home in their late 30s and early 40s. I also know plenty of retirees fighting to preserve their low property tax rates
while at the very same time passionately fighting to block new residences for the next generation for reasons as flippant as that they appear a bit gauche. This is why the political disagreement is becoming a political brawl.
Now, open space obviously has value to the city (again, this is my main argument to folks in this movement against converting municipal golf courses). Again, though, not all open space is not created equal. Thus, if I had to have a clear answer, I think a private course should be taxed around the rate of farmland (which I think is a reasonable compromise), because unless the course is actively set up as a native wildlife or plant life preserve, it's effectively an urban turf/sod farm. Courses that are providing actual benefits for the native flora and fauna I think should be able to get some tax relief. That said, I'm not the person we're trying to convince.
This is why I harp on simple golf benefits for non-golfers. I'm trying to focus on operators creating a real, tangible things and experiences for the greater community that they will lose if the local course goes away. This could be something as simple as putting a clubhouse grill sign on the street, inviting people in, and staying open for dinner. It could be something like having a warming hut-style food truck strategically place at the edge of the property between two holes to allow the neighborhood a place to stop in on a weekend walk. I become more and more worried as public and municipal courses have mimicked private clubs, and operate as little fiefdoms, trying to keep others out, because I know that, fair or not, we are much more vulnerable than a lot of us think we are.