A $20 billion affordable housing bond — which would have been the largest ever of its kind and the subject of a campaign half-a-decade in the making — won’t go before San Francisco Bay Area voters this November after all.
This morning, the board of the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority voted to scrap the measure for now, potentially punting the effort until at least 2026. This comes just two months after the board voted unanimously to place the borrowing plan on this year’s ballot. The money would have been used to fund the construction and preservation of subsidized housing across the region. Bay Area homeowners would have paid back the debt through property taxes.
“We’ve had to think about the long run, and it’s going to now need to be, we think, an even longer run, in order to preserve our collective ability to really fight and win,” said Heather Hood, who manages the Northern California market for Enterprise Community Partners, a housing nonprofit and a member of the pro-bond coalition.
Hood choked up while adding: “We are recommending that you pull (the measure) from the ballot and I really deeply regret this recommendation.”
Today’s vote was unanimous, though some expressed mixed feelings about the decision. “If I probably had my own way, I think I would have rolled the dice and kept it on the ballot,” said board member and Solano County Supervisor James P. Spering. “But I understand the dynamics that we’re operating with.”
The change of heart was born out of concerns about the public’s appetite for costly new measures, a pending lawsuit against the regional bond, and worry about another ballot measure, Proposition 5. That statewide constitutional amendment would make it easier to pass local and regional affordable…
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