A regional bond to build housing will no longer appear on ballots in November after the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority unanimously voted to pull the measure Wednesday.
The $20 billion bond promised to provide funding for up to 90,000 units throughout nine Bay Area counties if voters approved it in the November election. The measure would have been funded by additional annual property taxes, amounting to an average of just less than $19 per $100,000 in appraised value.
In June, the BAHFA unanimously placed it on the ballot in what BAHFA commissioner and Santa Rosa City Councilmember Victoria Fleming called the "best vote" she has ever taken in her six years in elected office.
But since then, concerns about the electability of the bond measure emerged from some of its proponents. Even before the agency voted to place the measure on the ballot, BAHFA's polling showed that voters' interest in the proposal had stagnated as they remained concerned with inflation and high taxes.
Its June polling showed that support for the bond was around 54% of voters, well below the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure. BAHFA placed it on the ballot anyway, hoping that the measure could sneak through if California voters in November also passed Proposition 5, a proposal to lower the voting threshold for general bonds in the state to 55%.
Concerns over its possible passage came to a head recently, as a mathematical error had led BAHFA to misstate the amount of money the bond would require to be spent annually by hundreds of millions of dollars. And last week, a coalition of Bay Area residents sued the board over the mistake, which could have led to a judge writing the language that would appear on the ballot next to the measure.
Opponents of the measure have seized on the error to illustrate concerns about BAHFA's transparency and ability to oversee the money potentially generated by the bond.
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Citing concerns about voter interest, the chairs of Bay Area Housing for All, the organization leading the campaign for the bond measure, recommended that the board pull it from the ballot. One of the chairs, Heather Hood, said that group was looking toward future elections to get the bond passed.
"We've had to think about the long run," said Hood, through apparent tears. "It's going to now need to be, we think, an even longer run."
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Members of both the public and the BAHFA framed pulling the measure off the ballot as a way to solidify support for Prop 5 this election, paving an easier way forward for the bond measure to pass in 2026.
"It is a huge disappointment," said Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who serves on BAHFA."But, again, let's take this energy and go fight for Prop 5."
Still, many advocates showed up to the BAHFA meeting Wednesday urging the authority to keep the measure on the ballot and pledging to support a campaign effort. Delaying a vote on the housing bond would place it on what commissioner and former Solano County Supervisor Jim Spering called a "collision course" with plans to pass a similar bond to close budget shortfalls for local transit agencies during the 2026 election.
"If I had my own way, I think I would have rolled the dice and kept it on the ballot and seen if we could have gotten it approved," Spering said.
Despite an unenthusiastic mood from commissioners, BAHFA still pulled the housing measure. Drawing contrast to her comments about the June vote, Fleming called the move the "saddest one" she'd taken.
"As a matter of procedure, I will be voting (to remove the measure)," she said. "But in my heart, I will certainly not be."
