Kudos to City for covering the land-value tax policy ( Rush?" February 11).

What happens when we continue to weigh the property tax so heavily on assessment of buildings and improvements, and so lightly on land? We reward neglect, underutilization, speculation, and wasteful use of land (e.g. ugly surface parking lots on prime city land downtown where there should be beautiful buildings). We give away huge chunks of needed revenue in the form of dubious tax breaks to a very select few because there is no across-the-board codified tax incentive for good urban land use and development. We watch Kodak demolish good buildings to lower their tax and simultaneously erase revenue critically needed by the city and its citizens. And we punish with raised assessments and property-tax bills those who strive to make their properties durable and beautiful and their neighborhoods better.

Land-value tax not only shifts the tax to encourage good development and discourage bad development; it also steadies the levy against the wild volatility of building values. In the Kodak case, LVT would encourage Kodak to reuse the now-landfilled buildings - an eclectic performing arts center? - with very little or no tax on any improvements, and simultaneously protect the community from the double whammy of lost buildings and lost tax revenue.

Under LVT, the speculators who blight key parcels downtown - or the better developers they sell to because underutilization of urban land is no longer so profitable - can build a handsome 15-story building, while paying relatively low taxes for building efficiently on the land. Sure, the tax on that land will be relatively high because of its high site value, but the tax would be low relative to the overall square footage and private revenue afforded by the building.

We do all our work to restore our city an enormous disservice when we don't seriously explore this particular property-tax reform. Mayor Duffy, keep this in mind: Mayor Stephen Reed of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, credits the land-value tax as a key piece of his city's remarkable turnaround from the late 1980's, when it was considered one of the most distressed in the country. Last year, the reputable World Mayors competition selected Reed as the third best mayor in the world, behind only two major city mayors in Europe and Australia.

All our good design charrettes, visioning processes, and progressive plans cannot trump bad policy. Let's reward our own toil to improve the city by enacting a land-value tax. It will enable all that we envision in all those beautiful drawings and computer renderings.

EVAN LOWENSTEIN, ROCHESTER