Would voters in the nine-county Bay Area be more likely to support affordable “homes” or “houses” when they’re asked to vote on a $20 billion bond measure this fall?
A group opposing the November ballot item is suing the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, a regional body that put the measure on the ballot, arguing that the question’s wording is biased and inaccurate. BAHFA, made up of local officials, already has changed some of the ballot measure’s language in response to the opponents’ concerns.
If approved, the measure would be the first housing bond in the region aimed at helping to preserve and build up to 90,000 affordable homes. The bond would levy an estimated annual tax of $18.98 per $100,000 of assessed value, or about $265 per year for a $1.4 million home or commercial property. The total cost of the bond, including principal and interest, is estimated at $48.3 billion and would take more than 50 years to pay off.
The group bringing the lawsuit against the housing authority includes a mix of business leaders and libertarian activists. They are represented by Jason Bezis, a local government watchdog and the attorney of choice for “concerned taxpayer” groups.
Authorized in July, the housing bond question to appear on voters’ Nov. 5 ballots is just 75 words long. Its opponents take issue with nearly a third of them.
Last Friday, Bezis sent the housing authority a letter seeking a series of changes to language in the ballot question they regard as “prejudicial.” They say that the ballot question includes language about reducing homelessness and converting vacant lots and blighted properties, when the actual ballot measure doesn’t require using the bond money toward these goals. The word “home,” they alleged, isn’t neutral and would also bias voters.
The group also pointed out that the ballot question inaccurately estimated the annual cost of the bond to taxpayers at $670 million, when its actual cost is $911 million if paid off by 2077 as expected.
In a meeting of its executive committee Thursday morning, the housing authority reviewed the lawsuit and conceded that its math was incorrect, voting to amend the estimate that appears in the question. The agency did not make any other changes sought in the complaint.
“We genuinely appreciate Mr. Bezis bringing this clerical error to our attention so we could correct it in a timely error before ballots are printed,” said John Goodwin, a spokesperson for BAHFA. The agency declined to comment on the rest of the lawsuit’s complaints, citing pending litigation.
The plaintiffs on Friday filed an application seeking to speed up a hearing on the lawsuit to next week. Counties are preparing to send ballots out to voters on Oct. 7.
Marc Joffe, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and a state policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, said in a statement that he was frustrated by BAHFA’s $241 million error.
“How can the public trust an agency that can’t do basic arithmetic with nearly $50 billion of its taxes?” he said.
The lawsuit may be just the first of several challenges that the measure faces. Some of the plaintiffs listed in the lawsuit are also involved in a group called “20 BILLION Reasons to Vote No,” which has organized to oppose the measure, contending the bond does not efficiently spend taxpayer dollars.
The group was co-founded by Thomas Rubin, a transit industry consultant and researcher for the libertarian Reason Foundation and the conservative Heritage Foundation. He is also a board member of the California Association of Bond Oversight Committees, a group that serves as a watchdog over school bond spending.
“We have to try to get our government costs under control,” Rubin said in an interview. “This plan will not do very much at all to improve affordable housing, and it will cost a huge amount of money.”
Local government leaders and housing advocates have been major backers of the bond. Recent polling by agency has found that 54% of likely voters support the bond.
That wouldn’t be enough to meet the two-thirds threshold of voters required of most local bonds. But voters in November could also approve a California constitutional amendment that would lower the threshold needed to approve local housing and infrastructure borrowing to 55%. If that passes, it would apply to any bond concurrently on the ballot, including BAHFA’s.
Across the Bay Area, some 1.4 million residents, 23% of all local renters, spend more than half their income on rent, classifying them as “severely rent-burdened,” according to regional officials. Meanwhile, an estimated 37,000 people in the region are homeless on any given night.
The regional bond measure comes as the state is pushing Bay Area cities and counties to build more than 441,000 new homes by 2031, a roughly 15% increase in the region’s total housing stock. More than half the homes must be affordable to low- and middle-income residents.
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