A state bond that would have raised $20 billion for affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area was pulled from the ballot until at least 2026, according to an article by Ben Christopher in the Alameda Post.
“This comes just two months after the board voted unanimously to place the borrowing plan on this year’s ballot. The money would have been used to fund the construction and preservation of subsidized housing across the region. Bay Area homeowners would have paid back the debt through property taxes,” Christopher adds.
Board members expressed regret at the decision, but “The change of heart was born out of concerns about the public’s appetite for costly new measures, a pending lawsuit against the regional bond and worry about another measure on the ballot, Proposition 5,” which would lower the threshold for housing and infrastructure bonds to 55 percent, making it easier to pass such bonds in the future. “An earlier effort in the Legislature to put a statewide housing bond fizzled earlier this year, shunted aside by two competing borrowing measures focused on climate change and school facilities.”