San Francisco residents voted to approve a local measure aimed at addressing the housing crisis by levying a tax on landlords of multi-unit buildings who have allowed rooms to sit vacant for an extended period of time.
found around 40,000 empty units in San Francisco; by 2021, the rate had increased to 15 percent of all units in the city, at 58,000 vacancies.
Tenant advocates … looked to Vancouver, B.C. for a vacancy tax model; the program had already proven effective in the Canadian city. “We hit our signature goal ahead of target,” Singh related. “I think that’s because when we talked to people on the street asking for their signatures, they thought it was really clear — they thought it was a no-brainer. Getting the message across was pretty straightforward and elegant. WeThere were some residual concerns about turnout, Singh recalled; San Francisco had, again, four elections this year, and voter fatigue was a real possibility.
It is actually the corporate landlords with significant real estate holdings that harbor the most vacancies:cited by the Prop M campaign indicates that 33.2 percent of vacancies are found in buildings with more than 50 units, with another 28.9 percent in buildings from 5 to 49 units. And, while exact numbers are not yet clear, Singh said a sizeable number of the units that sit vacant are rent-controlled.
; the program had already proven effective in the Canadian city. The key aspect of the Vancouver policy that was adopted for Prop M was the stipulation that the tax owed would grow along with the length of time that a unit is vacant. Prop M’s tax rate now rises toreaching that height after a unit has been vacant for three years. That penalty should make for a strong incentive indeed.
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