I've become a firm supporter of the idea of gradually increasing non-occupancy taxes, with some scaling factor based off local overall vacancy rates.
If you want to fix this with taxes it's easy: repeal prop 13. We don't need golf courses in city centers or untaxed empty lots in prime locations.
On a brief search, I didn't find an estimate for revenue increase if Prop 13 were abolished. I'd guess it would be at least as much as the proposed commercial-specific mod.
My Prop 13 anecdote: a neighbor who bought a 3BR house on 0.8 acre in the 1950s pays less in annual property taxes than I do on one month's utility bills. I'm fine with that, she's pushing 100 and probably wouldn't be able to stay home without Prop 13.
Meantime, a 1940s 3BR house on a 0.35 acre lot right across the street from her sold for $2.9 million last December. Anecdotal, but suggests the potential magnitude of tax revenue change if Prop 13 were entirely removed.
[1] http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/08/california-to-vote-on...
I understand that your neighbor is old and that we should provide a social safety net for her. But that can be done in many different ways that don't involve massive handouts to real estate investors.
http://projects.scpr.org/prop-13/ is a good read if you like prop 13 anecdotes
Surely this would still require the 2/3rds majority of voters and lawmakers required by prop 218.
Do you have any kind of reference for this? It is a contrarian opinion compared to Case Schiller and other well-known housing research organizations.
Today, as the state grapples with an unprecedented affordable housing shortage, Article 34 has limited effects on the construction of low-income developments. But it remains an obstacle: Los Angeles officials believe that without a public vote in the coming years, the city will no longer be able to finance such projects — even though it has the money to do so.
I realize that screaming at “NIMBYs” is practically a hobby for some, but I can see their perspective too. For one, the resources exist today to do better, but it’s not done. Rather increased housing leads to billionaires, Russian oligarchs and others buying up expensive real estate and not actually living there. For all that new plans claim to be aimed at housing the poor, it rarely works out that way.
If you want to reduce concerns, use the existing funds responsibly, and prove that future loosening of restrictions wouldn’t just be a bonanza for the wealthy, and lead to even more tech influx. Listen to people who express concerns that leveling smaller structure and building vertically:
A.) Would lead to a predictable boom-bust leaving California at some future date, with a load of ugly, crumbling infrastructure.
B.) That attempts to house the poor will go hand in hand with other efforts to increase economic opportunities for them, expand mental healthcare, and improve policing. Without that it’s just warehousing, and communities do suffer.
C.) Would change what drew people there in the first place, leading to the afformentioned boom-bust.
D.) That this isn’t all about extremely well-paid techies who will move where’ve the money goes.
I see more of a dynamic, in practice, of rich existing interests clashing with rich incoming interests, while the poor are used as little more than a rallying cry or scapegoat. I suspect that I’m one of many unconvincedby arguments of “the character of a community” under threat, as well as facetious arguments from “digital nomads” who are mostly just tired of the commute. I’ll say it again, as the article states the money is there, Article 34 isn’t a significant impediment, yet the poor are still systemically screwed.