A coalition of housing advocates, nonprofit and business leaders called for altering Los Angeles’ so-called “mansion tax” with practical reforms to ensure it delivers on its promise to build more housing, increase affordability and reduce homelessness. On Friday, the group — named The Affordable LA: Mend It, Don’t End It Coalition — presented their proposal to amend Measure United to House Los Angeles, which they say under its current structure is creating unintended barriers. Coalition representatives joined the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Measure ULA to discuss how the 2022-voter approved initiative is working in practice, and what targeted adjustments could strengthen its impact on housing production and homelessness prevention outcomes. Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado, who chairs the committee, emphasized that proposed reforms are not about ending the measure, but rather “protecting it, and making it work at the scale Angelenos were promised.” ULA is “making L.A.’s housing crisis worse,” according to the coalition. They said the measure has resulted in a 32% decline in multifamily homes being built annually, a 67% drop in property transactions above $5 million, as well as a decline of $488 million in property tax revenue and 12% increase in rent since 2022. The group is calling for six core reforms: establishing a 15-year exemption for newly built multifamily and commercial properties, enacting a cap rate of 1-2% on non-single family home properties to prevent rent inflation, creating a 3- to 5-year wildfire exemption for families who lost their homes in the Palisades Fire from the tax, streamlining financing rules and expand uses, setting clear performance and governance guidelines and using ULA revenues to bond $1.5 billion to jump start housing construction. “ULA was sold as a mansion tax,” Sarah Dusseault, a housing advocate, said. “What it has become, in practice, is a tax on housing and jobs.” Measure ULA went into effect on January 1, 2023, and applicable property sale tax collections began on April 1, 2023. The ULA ballot measure was drafted by a broad-based community coalition, endorsed by more than 200 local organizations, and approved by 58% of Los Angeles voters in the November 2022 election. Measure ULA, sold to voters as a “mansion tax” in 2022, is a 4-5.5% tax on all real estate transactions above $5 million in LA. Its revenues support vital goals of funding affordable housing and homelessness prevention. But three years of evidence show the tax is causing significant harm to new housing production and eroding the city’s property-tax base — undermining the exceptionally affordability it was meant to address. Measure United to House Los Angeles has officially raised more than $1 billion to address the city’s housing and homelessness crisis, it was announced today.
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