The Los Angeles City Council is giving the city’s so-called mansion tax its own rapid-response team. On Wednesday, councilmembers voted to create a three-member ad hoc committee that will dig into Measure ULA, the voter-approved property transfer tax, and sort through all pending files tied to it. The panel is expected to return recommendations on a tight timeline after a push from Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who co-authored the motion.
The motion was introduced on March 4 and won unanimous approval at Wednesday’s meeting, according to MyNewsLA. Measure ULA, which was approved by voters in November 2022 and implemented in 2023, creates a dedicated fund for affordable housing by applying a tiered transfer tax to high-value property sales, according to the Los Angeles Housing Department.
Leaders' Pitch and Proposals
Harris-Dawson told colleagues, “I want to be clear that it’s the full intention to stay in keeping with the spirit of the voters,” while Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez called for an “honest open book conversation” about ULA, according to MyNewsLA. At the same time, Councilmember Nithya Raman has floated a June ballot measure that would carve out exemptions for newly built multifamily, commercial, and mixed-use projects for up to 15 years, and would also allow temporary disaster exemptions and technical financing changes, as reported by The Real Deal.
Evidence Cited by Reformers
Supporters of new exemptions point to academic work suggesting Measure ULA coincided with a sharp drop in multifamily permitting and in high-value transactions. Some analyses estimate the policy has reduced new market-rate housing by roughly 2,000 units a year, according to reporting in the Los Angeles Times. Researchers at UCLA's Lewis Center have argued that the tax makes privately funded mixed-income projects harder to finance and have put forward targeted fixes, with the underlying analysis available from the UCLA Lewis Center.
Backlash and Stakes
Proponents of Measure ULA counter that the tax has already generated roughly $1 billion for homelessness prevention and affordable-housing programs, a milestone advocates highlighted earlier this year, according to The Real Deal. United to House LA director Joe Donlin has warned that rewriting ULA would weaken a key financing tool, and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is pursuing a November initiative to curb local transfer taxes, developments that raise the political stakes around any changes the council might consider, according to reporting from Patch/City News Service.
What Comes Next
The ad hoc panel is expected to sift through the outstanding referrals tied to Measure ULA and recommend next steps to the relevant committees and ultimately the full council in the coming weeks. With the June primary approaching and a likely November ballot fight on deck, any tweaks to ULA could reshape how Los Angeles pays for affordable housing and how developers gauge the feasibility of future projects.
