The following positions were vetted by HLC’s Policy Committee and Board of Directors.
YES on Prop 5: Empower Your Community
Prop 5 gives local voters more control to meet the housing needs of low- and middle-income families and improve infrastructure like transit and emergency services. This proposition would allow cities, counties, and the state to approve housing bonds with a 55% vote threshold if they include strict accountability measures, paving the way for affordable homes and resilient communities.
Context: Under existing California law, bonds for housing and infrastructure require 2/3 voting majorities in order to pass. The high threshold to pass bonds for affordable homes makes passing necessary funding harder.
HLC’s position: We support the right of local voters to determine where their money goes. Small minorities of voters should not be able to block essential funding for housing and transit. For affordable housing specifically, bond funding has an advantage over other models because the funding can be provided up front or predictably over time, rather than the variability of tax increment financing or general fund revenues.
Phone Bank or Canvass for Prop 5 on Election Day
YES on Measure T for a thriving San Mateo
San Mateo’s high housing costs are pushing out residents, essential workers, and young families. Measure T offers a path to rezone areas of the city for denser housing, making affordable homes a reality.
Context: Since 1991, San Mateo has had a height and density cap limiting the amount of housing that can be built to a maximum of 55 feet and 50 dwelling units per acre. Measure Y, the most recent iteration of the height and density cap, passed in 2020 with just 43 votes in support. Measure Y substantially constrains the ability of San Mateo to meet its housing needs by preventing the city council from allowing taller, denser buildings.
Measure T represents more than 6 years of effort by the San Mateo community to identify suitable locations for new homes near businesses and transportation corridors.
The City of San Mateo’s updated Land Use Map under Measure T. Blue, purple, and brown colors represent areas where Measure T would increase heights and densities to a maximum of eight stories and 130 dwelling units per acre, though most areas would be lower density.
HLC’s position: Measure T’s increases in heights and densities are objectively better than the status quo, representing a first step toward overturning San Mateo’s exclusionary height and density limits entirely. Though HLC believes Measure T should have allowed greater density in a wider range of areas than currently proposed, we support efforts to move in a positive direction for allowing housing in San Mateo.
YES on Measure JJ in East Palo Alto
Measure JJ guarantees Measure L revenue is spent where the voters want by requiring a minimum proportion of revenue go toward tenant rental assistance (30%) and a maximum proportion of revenue (20%) fund staff overhead and other city costs.
Background: In November 2022, East Palo Alto voters passed Measure L, a 2.5% tax on residential rent receipts. The advisory language in Measure L referred exclusively to housing-related issues. However, since the passage of Measure L, the majority of funds from Measure L have been used to fund issues unrelated to housing affordability or tenants.
Measure JJ would require that (1) a minimum of 30% of Measure L tax revenues be used exclusively for tenant rental assistance, (2) a maximum of 20% of Measure L tax revenues be used for reasonably incurred costs to the City of EPA for staff and overhead to administer the measure, and (3) the remaining revenues may be used in any way that supports affordable homeownership, preserves affordable housing, furthers tenant rental assistance, or protects residents of EPA from displacement or homelessness.
HLC’s position: Cities should be accountable to upholding the promises they made to voters, and voters passed Measure L with language primarily related to housing issues. More than 40 community organizers and housing activists gathered 2060 verified signatures to support Measure JJ, approximately 18% of the city’s voting population–far surpassing the 10% threshold required to put a measure on the ballot. Given the strong community support for spending Measure L revenue on areas for which it was initially promised, HLC supports Measure JJ.
NO on Prop 33
California needs to reform Costa Hawkins to reform rent control and ensure renters in all housing types can benefit from protections. Which is why it is unfortunate that Prop 33 is written so broadly that anti-housing cities can use it to discriminate against new affordable homes.
Context: California already has statewide rent control. AB 1482, a statewide law passed in 2018, caps rent growth at a maximum of 10% per year, a 5% increase plus up to 5% for inflation. However, Costa-Hawkins, a separate state law passed in 1995, places restrictions on where rent control can apply. Under Costa Hawkins, rent control cannot apply to housing built after 1995 or single-family homes of any kind.
HLC’s position: Costa Hawkins needs reform, but Prop 33 is written in a way that would allow cities to discriminate against new homes. A conservative council member from Huntington Beach explained why they support Prop 33: the law “gives local governments ironclad protections from the state’s housing policy.”
Prop 33 would enable jurisdictions to avoid state housing laws because the language is incredibly broad. The measure reads “The state may not limit the right of any city, county, or city and county to maintain, enact, or expand residential rent control.”
This broad language would enable cities to subvert new homes in a number of ways:
- Cities could apply rent control exclusively on new homes. Costa Hawkins limits rent control on homes built before 1995; Prop 33 would enable rent control to be applied exclusively on homes built after 2025, for example–which is what conservative council members in Huntington Beach hope to do.
- Prop 33 does not guarantee cities apply rent control equally on single-family and multi-family homes–the most important reform. Costa Hawkins exempts single-family homes from rent control, meaning households in many of California’s most expensive neighborhoods lack protections available to apartment dwellers. Prop 33 would continue to allow cities to treat multi-family homes unequally from single-family homes.
- Cities could make new housing financially infeasible to build by mandating negative rent growth. Decreasing rents by law sounds good, but it has tradeoffs: Developers may no longer find new housing financially feasible to build; landlords will be less likely to upkeep their homes or renovate them. Existing tenants may benefit from lower rents short term, but future residents–young families, immigrants, LGBT youth fleeing persecution in other states, and more–will have fewer and more expensive housing options long term.
Cities have strong incentives to abuse rent control to block new homes. Over the last decade, California has passed increasingly strict laws requiring cities to plan for housing. The housing element process requires cities to change local policies to facilitate new homes; laws like SB 9 require cities to allow duplexes in a wide range of areas (in theory at least). Prop 33’s broad language would allow cities to render all state housing rules irrelevant, because it dictates “The state may not limit the right of any city … to maintain, enact, or expand residential rent control” of any kind.
Preserve state pro-housing laws by voting no on Prop 33. We can pursue Costa Hawkins reform through the legislature instead.