Critics worried mammoth regional housing tax is "a blank check."
The inability of supporters to explain even the most basic elements of the colossal proposed regional housing snatch has community leaders throwing red flags. Elaine Goodman at the Palo Alto Daily Post explores.
Bay Area officials are getting closer to approving a November ballot measure that would ask voters for a property tax increase to raise up to $20 billion for affordable housing across the region.
How much the measure would increase property tax also remains to be seen. Estimates this month say a $20 billion bond would require a tax hike of about $19 per $100,000 of assessed value, or around $190 a year for a home with an assessed value of $1 million.
Proponents say a $20 billion bond measure would pay for construction or preservation of 72,000 affordable homes in the nine-county Bay Area over the next 15 years. That would be double the number of homes built or preserved without the bond, BAHFA said in a draft report on the housing plan last month.
But critics are calling the bond measure “a blank check” in which funding allocations can be changed after it’s approved.
“Without specific plans or projects identified, voters have no clear understanding of how their tax dollars will be used to ensure the maximum impact on affordability,” Maxine Terner, a member of San Mateo Community College District’s bond oversight committee and a former member of the San Mateo Planning Commission, said in an email to the Post.
Some seniors say they want to be exempted from the property tax increase.
And the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area said last month that it’s holding off on deciding whether to support the bond measure.
“We are concerned that there has been no robust discussion regarding an independent, citizens’ oversight committee,” League officials said in a letter to the ABAG executive board.
As things now stand, the bond measure would need a two-thirds vote to pass. But voters in November will also decide on a proposal to lower the approval threshold to 55% for bond measures to fund affordable housing and certain other purposes.
Under the draft proposal, $10.4 billion of the $20 billion would go toward building at least 36,000 new affordable homes. Another $3 billion would be used to preserve existing affordable housing. For example, developers or community land trusts could ask for money to buy older apartment buildings and renovate them, while agreeing to keep the apartments affordable long term.
The remaining $6 billion would go toward “flexible” uses, such as providing down payment assistance or improving roads or parks to benefit affordable housing residents.
Read the whole thing here.
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