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Los Angeles City Council members voted unanimously Wednesday to shelve efforts to put a Measure ULA exemption for new multifamily construction on the ballot.
Moments before the council was set to vote on the exemption, Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky introduced another option: vote instead to "note and file" the item, shelving it.
As Wednesday is the last day before the council goes to recess, the item won't be on the November ballot. Measure ULA adds a 4% tax to property purchases from $5.3M to $10.6M and 5.5% to trades larger than $10.6M.
Yaroslavksy praised the power of Measure ULA to fund the affordable housing the city badly needs but also said challenges to Measure ULA aren't over.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association's attempted statewide ballot measure was pulled last week in a last-minute switch following some major negotiations in Sacramento.
The HJTA's measure would have repealed Measure ULA retroactively and limited transfer taxes to less than 1%, a move that would severely strain the budgets of many cities across the state that have come to rely on these taxes as a critical source of revenue.
To avoid another narrow miss on losing ULA entirely, city leaders are going to have to get to work, Yaroslavksy said.
"The pressure behind ULA reform is not going to go away, because the valid concerns from people who build housing are not going away, and we will keep finding ourselves back here if we don't show courage, get ahead of it and make a reform we and housing builders can live with," she told the council.
Reports from UCLA, the University of Southern California and other academic institutions have highlighted some challenges stemming from ULA. They include slowed transactions that lead to lower property taxes, which translate to reduced funds for other public amenities.
Some changes to ULA did make the cut.
The council voted in favor of a one-time, five-year exemption to ULA for Palisades fire survivors. It also voted in favor of a tax credit program that would allow for residential projects with some affordable housing to reduce their ULA rate to 1.5%, provided that they use prevailing wage labor on the project.
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