SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, California – Vacation home owners in Northern California’s South Lake Tahoe could face a significant tax increase if voters in the mountain resort approve a measure on Tuesday’s ballot. affordable housing against private property rights.

South Lake Tahoe, which sits on the shores of the iconic alpine lake, has about 7,000 vacant homes — 44 percent of the city’s estimated housing units — according to the 2022 American Community Survey. Measure N would charge an apartment $3,000 fee on homes that are vacant for 182 days in a calendar year.

The fee would increase to $6,000 for each subsequent year that the home remains vacant for half of the year.

The city is most recently from the United States with a growing debate about the impact of holiday properties. Critics say the vacant second homes have exacerbated the nation’s housing crisis, contributing to a shortage of affordable rental properties, especially in pricey resorts like South Lake Tahoe.

SUPPORTERS of the measure say they want to encourage homeowners to rent to workers or pay into a fund for housing, road and transportation projects. The city is said to be disclosure of families as businesses struggle to hire staff in a region with little land available for housing development.

Kelly Bessem works at least 50 hours a week at multiple jobs as a hydrology and land management scientist and snowboard instructor. She is currently sleeping in her car to buy a house in Markleeville, which is a 40-minute drive from South Lake Tahoe.

“I’ve done all the things I’m supposed to do, but it’s still to the point where I’m pulling myself together,” Bessem said.

Nancy Dunn, a homeowner who has lived part-time in South Lake Tahoe since 2018, oppose measure as unfair and un-American.

“This is my home and I want to be able to come back to it when I want and come and go as I feel like,” Dunn said as he stocked his home with firewood earlier this month. “The American way is to have the right to own property and do with it as you please.”

The California Association of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors contributed $1 million to defeat the measure in a city with just 12,000 registered voters.

Although still rare in the US, several places are considering a vacant or vacant house tax to address the workforce housing shortage by accessing underutilized housing to expand the long-term rental market.

In HawaiiThe Honolulu City Council is trying to pass a vacant homes tax, they third attempt in 2018while the Colorado Ski Towns Association is seeking legislation that would allow cities and counties to ask voters to approve taxes on vacant homes.

Margaret Bowes, chief executive of the Colorado group, said resort towns have few options where i can build. The housing shortage “has reached a crisis level,” affecting basic services and commerce “from ski resort businesses to local, small businesses,” she said.

Perhaps the best-known example is Vancouver, Canada, which in 2017 imposed a tax of 1% on the assessed taxable value of an empty home. The tax is now 3 percent, and the city says it has generated $142 million for affordable housing projects.

In California, San Francisco and Berkeley approved vacant property taxes in 2022.

Vacancy taxes may work to a limited extent in larger cities, but a vacant-home tax could make a huge difference in smaller towns like South Lake Tahoe, said Shane Phillips, who manages Randall Lewis Housing Initiative at the University of California, Los Angeles.

He didn’t know enough about the proposed tax to weigh in, but generally supports vacation taxes for vacation homes in regions where housing is short. Taxes can be used to deter harmful behavior, he said, like taxes on cigarettes.

“And I think there’s a similar argument to be made here, that people are consuming more houses and not living in them in communities like South Lake Tahoe … it’s actually hurting other people,” Phillips said.

Measure N has rattled the tiny community, which with about 21,000 year-round residents is the most populous town surrounding Lake Tahoe and a popular weekend destination. It is 188 miles (300 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

The city has a median household income of $68,000, lower than the California median of $95,000. The median sale price of a home was $750,000 in September — up from $427,000 five years ago, according to Redfin.

After Berkeley’s model tax on empty homesthe city projects that the proposed tax will raise up to $8 million in its first year and up to $20 million per year thereafter.

Amelia Richmond, co-founder of Locals for Affordable Housing, the group that gathered signatures to put the issue on the ballot, said it’s an opportunity to make sure South Lake Tahoe doesn’t go the way of other mountain towns with rates and more vacancies. .

Property owners would self-report each year, although documentation may be required. There are exceptions to the occupancy requirements, such as homes under renovation.

To avoid the tax, vacation home owners could sell their property, rent to a year-round tenant, or rent to seasonal travelers or workers. They can’t list their homes as short-term rentals after the city voted to crack down on rentals of less than 30 days, citing noise and housing shortages.

Opponents say many of them downsized and saved for modest second homes and shouldn’t be penalized for the region’s lack of affordable housing. They’re also upset that, as part-time residents, they can’t vote on the measure.

Tom Fields, 85, splits his time between a three-bedroom house he describes as nothing special other than its location on Lake Tahoe and a place in central Oregon.

“It’s crazy and I don’t even know if it’s constitutional,” he said. “When you buy the land and they start taking rights, that’s when people get upset.”

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Har reported from San Francisco.