Are you speaking for all of them?

I am unclear about what you said about ‘undue costs onto new property developments’. Why should existing home owners share the cost of new developments?? What are these ‘undue costs’?

The development company buys land or old property and builds on it. Then they sell it at a profit. They pay fees to the city for digging trenches and fixing sewers and water and gas and electricity connections. Some areas also pay for new schools and school rooms to be built so existing schools don’t get over crowded.

How is any of this the fault of existing residents? What benefit do they gain by making it cheaper for more people to move in into higher density developments? Older residents don’t use schools. Property taxes from high density high income zip codes don’t even benefit those paying it. No one understands the formula. Sacramento obfuscates the actual allocation. I have poured over the budget of school districts and my city‘s budget. It is a Ponzi scheme.

None of the taxes paid by the highest earning population comes back to them. It is redistributed to other less affluent non Silicon Valley zip codes. To avoid bringing attention to this, a spotlight is thrown upon senior owned properties because they are an easy target. And they are property owners with highly inflated but NON LIQUID FIXED ASSETS. Please note that this is very crucial.

A lack of critical thinking and inability to pull the govt spending at Sacramento is a failing of the younger working force demanding for repeal of prop 13.

Instead of questioning high density housing where only the govt benefits by increased property tax recipts that pad the huge deficit due to unfunded pension liabilities, there is a mob mentality to attack the most vulnerable and unrepresented minority who are senior property owners.

Why are they not asking for govt accountability? Why are they not asking for better infrastructure and better public transport to create sustainable density. Yes, low density and sprawl is unsustainable but the Bay Area is not sprawl. The more high density a city becomes, the more unaffordable housing becomes there. The economics and numbers is pretty obvious if anyone wants to look at it and be honest.

There is a startling lack of honesty and a stunning pretense of true intent ...I have always smirked when I heard the term ‘virtue signalling’ ..but I totally get it now.

Taxes should be minimal. Taxes increase should be at a stable and predictable rate. Taxes should be based on consumption.

‘Discretion’ is the mother of corruption. There are other solutions:

1. Limit foreign speculative investors
2. Schools must be locally funded with local property taxes. Any shortfall should come from a special fund.
3. Education should not be connected to speculative income that is property taxes. For this, cities should be able to govern themselves.
4. Less interference from Sacramento.
5. Infrastructure should be installed before approving high density homes.
6. Referendums from all residents before passing the local budget allocations. More local control..less central interference.
7. Tax payers should have weighted votes with local city budgeting decisions. Other wise it’s like asking your guests to spend your paycheck.
8. A more involved citizenry will have a vested interest in their community.
9. Better public transport networks. Our gas tax is a great example of misappropriation of taxes. It makes no sense that the surcharge on gas in Ca is used to rehabilitate prison population. It makes one not trust the govt.
10. Full transparency. If you go to transparentcalifornia dot com, all the salaries of govt employees will be public record. And yet, I still can’t crack the local funding formula of California where property taxes are allocated to California schools. I have made at least half a dozen calls to explain and/clarify doubts. Crickets.

Big govt, excessive taxation. This is the problem. Not prop 13..not senior citizens living in their homes that they paid for and built. And tragedy is that the people against them are the same people they educated with their tax dollars before the kids grew up and started cashing in their stock options.