To the editor: I’d have favored to see Mitchell Landsberg and Gale Holland write extra about Proposition 13 as a consider our metropolis’s housing disaster (“The true story of how L.A. turned the epicenter of America’s homeless disaster,” July 10). It receives however a paragraph’s consideration, and is faulted just for ravenous native governments of funds to cope with homelessness. In truth, the gravest consequence of Proposition 13 has been to subsidize property house owners, permitting them to so dearly cling to their holdings as to distort the market of their favor. By holding assessed worth for tax functions near the value on the time of buy, Proposition 13 disincentivizes longtime house owners to promote, thereby perpetually constraining stock on the general public’s dime.
The housing disaster is basically pushed by sky-high actual property costs, and there’s no answer in any respect that doesn’t contain denting house owners’ treasured property values. Repealing Proposition 13 in favor of a heavy tax on the current worth of land, ideally with enhancements exempted, is the only most effective means to such an finish. If we’re not prepared to tank California’s actual property market, then we’re not prepared to unravel the issue.
Michael Raley, Los Angeles
