San Francisco Supervisor Launches Ballot Campaign To Tax Owners Of Vacant Residential Units
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/BCN) -- Modeled after a similar law in Vancouver, San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston has launched efforts to place a measure on the November 2022 ballot to tax owners of certain vacant residential units.
Preston announced the proposed "Empty Homes Tax" ballot initiative on Tuesday.
Under the measure, a tax would be applied to owners of buildings of three units or more that have a residential unit that has been vacant for more than six months. The tax rate would be higher for larger units and would also increase the longer the unit stays vacant, according to Preston's office.
Single family homes and two-unit buildings would be exempt as well as properties under a lease or primary residences.
If ultimately passed by voters, the measure could bring 5,000 units of housing online within the first two years, according to a recent report released by the board's budget and legislative analyst.
According to the same report, more than 4,000 residential units in the city -- almost one of every 10 -- are currently unoccupied.
"In a city with a chronic shortage of affordable housing, and more than 8,000 people living on our streets, it is unconscionable that we have tens of thousands of homes sitting empty," Preston said.
He said the measure would "incentivize property owners to do the right thing."
The data shows the majority of vacancies lie in the Downtown, Mission and South of Mission Districts; the very areas where the most new housing has been constructed. Preston believes a lot of the units were purchased as investments to be held, unoccupied, and resold as housing prices increase.
"If you really want to disincentivize this, really want to get these vacant units activated, get people living in them, the most powerful tool we have, as a city, is an empty homes tax," he said.
The proposed measure was being greeted with a mixed reaction from housing advocates.
"It will make a marginal difference in creating some additional funding for affordable housing, sure, that's great. But it will in no way move the needle," said Todd David, Executive Director of the Housing Action Coalition.
David said the study counted all empty units, not just the long-term ones. He says if you look closely, the data shows it's closer to 8,000 properties held vacant, and the "40,000" number is being used to justify the tax proposal.
"To me, this feels like a quintessential, San Francisco Board of Supervisors suggestion," said David. "A proposal like this is really a distraction that makes it look like we're doing something when we're really not doing much of anything."
He said the real answer is to significantly change zoning so that denser, multi-unit complexes can be built in the city's single-family neighborhoods.
But while the activists argue about the best way for the city to force housing growth, Coldwell Banker realtor Karen Mai told KPIX that it was the city's tenant protection policies that were keeping landlords from leasing their properties after rent prices dropped by 25%.
"They are afraid of renting it to the tenant," Mai said. "When they want it back, they don't leave. And it's going to cost them money to pay them a relocation fee and hire an attorney to evict them."
And the housing wars are just getting started. As it stands now, California law will require San Francisco to make room for 82,000 new homes by the year 2031. Housing activists seem certain that it will take a stick, rather than a carrot, to create more housing. They just don't seem to agree which stick to use.