The San Diego Housing Commission recently proposed a new vacancy tax for owners of vacant San Diego apartments. This proposed tax has the explicit aim of directly tackling the housing crisis in downtown San Diego. By directly taxing homeowners who leave apartments vacant, the homeowners can avoid the tax by merely renting out their previously vacant apartments.
If they choose to pay the fee, the revenue from the newly imposed tax will go to generating revenue for low income housing programs. This project isn’t exactly a novel idea and follows LA county’s proposed 2020 ballot measure which imposes a similar “empty house” penalty.
This proposal and others around Southern California reflect a much deeper issue—the affordable housing crisis. The problem itself cannot be more clear, the median price of a single-family home in the San Diego metropolitan area is about $564,000, which makes it the fifth most expensive metro area in the country. San Diego also isn’t a friendly place for lower-class individuals, with a 104 percent increase in homeless tents.
However, instead of addressing these problems by releasing working class San Diegans from excessive regulation and taxation, this latest proposal is a sucker punch to the homeowners. As we see individuals and corporations fleeing the state in massive numbers, the newly dubbed “Calexodus” will continue as long as the fundamental problem of affordable housing continues. The city and the state will find out soon enough whether the tax and spend agenda will relieve this suffering.
