BERKELEY — Berkeley voters shall be requested to contemplate three proposals in November centered totally on fixing the town’s inexpensive housing disaster and fixing crumbling infrastructure.
By far the most costly merchandise on the Nov. 8 poll is Measure L, a $650 million common obligation bond measure that may assist allocate and lift cash for housing, infrastructure and local weather tasks, corresponding to highway repaving, inexpensive housing building and “undergrounding” utility strains.
If not less than 66% of voters mark “sure” on their ballots — which can start arriving in mailboxes Oct. 10 — the bond could be the most important income stream within the metropolis’s historical past.
Supporters argue that Measure L would advance growth targets whereas minimizing property tax will increase, as a consequence of a proposed 48-year reimbursement timeline. However opponents are involved voters shall be overwhelmed by the prices for many years to return, particularly at a time when inflation is successfully shrinking many residents’ paychecks.
Over the lifetime of the bond, the median improve to owners’ property taxes could be $40.91 for each $100,000 of a house’s assessed worth, in keeping with metropolis paperwork.
The most important chunk of the bond — $300 million — would go towards deliberate enhancements to streets, sidewalks and site visitors security. Of that funding, greater than 75% could be devoted to paving and reconstruction of the handfuls of metropolis streets which have buckles, cracks and potholes.
Reasonably priced housing initiatives could be allotted $200 million, which can assist assemble and purchase as much as 2,000 housing items when mixed with extra state and federal funding.
The remaining $150 million would go towards efforts like “undergrounding” utilities on evacuation routes to cut back wildfire dangers, developing bike and pedestrian services and enhancing the town’s waterfronts, open areas and parks.
In line with an neutral evaluation by Metropolis Legal professional Farimah Faiz Brown, the tax is projected to lift round $25 million yearly and the overall value of reimbursement, together with curiosity, is greater than $1.1 billion.
Mayor Jesse Arreguín stated he thinks the bond will enable metropolis leaders to come up with the money for to enhance and repair Berkeley into “the world-class metropolis it ought to be.”
“That is an urbanist measure to carry our ageing infrastructure into the twenty first century,” Arreguín stated in assertion after the Berkeley Metropolis Council finalized the proposal final month. “Berkeley residents have constantly ranked housing, local weather resiliency, and infrastructure as main priorities. We’re listening, and this bond is the Metropolis Council’s response.”
The measure would impression longtime owners and newer consumers in dramatically other ways.
For instance, if a house’s worth is assessed at $650,000 — a fee generally used for trade projections — the tax would tack on a further $265 yearly. This might sometimes be the state of affairs for long-term owners, lots of whom profit from decrease assessed house values due to California’s Proposition 13.
However residents who extra not too long ago bought a house in Berkeley, the place the median sale value hovers round $1.6 million, will face a rise nearer to $650 every year.
Opponents additionally object to the 48-year payback window: a number of of the deliberate priorities, corresponding to the road repairs, will start to decay and lose worth earlier than the invoice is paid again.
Jim McGrath, a civil engineer and former Parks and Waterfront commissioner who resigned in December, stated a scarcity of long-term planning and a historical past of murky monetary accountability pushed him to begin a marketing campaign towards Measure L.
“If you happen to take a look at the streets, the first-graders which might be in Berkeley colleges this 12 months shall be AARP members earlier than the bonds are paid off, however the streets shall be worn out after they’re in highschool,” McGrath stated. “It is smart to take out a mortgage to switch your roof as a result of it’s going to final 30 years, nevertheless it doesn’t make sense to take out a mortgage to purchase groceries.”
Voters may even be requested in the event that they help a tax on houses that sit vacant for greater than 182 days in a 12 months.
Measure M proposes taxing property homeowners between $3,000 and $6,000 for any empty condominiums, duplexes, single-family houses and townhouses. If these areas stay vacant for a second subsequent 12 months, that penalty would double.
Exemptions could be carved out for housing items managed by nonprofits, native authorities businesses, small property homeowners who dwell on-site, or households that don't personal a couple of single-family home and a single accent dwelling unit.
About 700 items could be topic to the tax in its first 12 months – starting in January 2024 – whereas upward of 1,000 items could be hit inside two years.
Metropolis officers estimate the tax might herald between $3.9 million and $5.9 million yearly, citing neighboring Oakland, which reaped greater than $7 million in income the primary 12 months after an analogous emptiness tax handed by 70% in 2018.
Councilmember Kate Harrison, who proposed the tax, stated it will be another artistic means the town can help efforts to extend native housing inventory.
“There’s an unforgivable variety of items that lie vacant, lots of them empty for years,” Harrison stated. “Constructing housing takes time. Right here, we will carry these items again on-line in a extra speedy vogue than that.”
If this 2022 proposal passes, one other vote could be wanted to increase the tax past 2035.
Lastly, Measure N will ask voters to permit Berkeley officers to “develop, assemble or purchase” as much as 3,000 low-income housing items. Whereas the measure wouldn't approve or dedicate metropolis funding to any particular housing tasks, this voter-led course of is required by state regulation.
In 2016, 83% of voters authorized an analogous query — Measure Z1 — to greenlight including a further 500 items of low-rent housing to the town’s inventory.