Two days ago, I wrote about San Diego’s proposed vacant home tax and why it’s really a revenue play disguised as housing policy. I laid out the numbers, the enforcement problems, and the San Francisco precedent where an identical tax was struck down as unconstitutional.
On March 4, the City Council voted 8-1 to put it on the June 2 ballot. Only Councilmember Raul Campillo voted no, and his reason was telling: “I am hesitant to vote for it today because I have not received the information I needed.” He wanted a legal memo analyzing whether the measure could survive a court challenge, and the council voted to put it in front of voters without one.
So now the question shifts from “will the council advance it” to “will voters approve it.” And if you understand California ballot measure politics at all, you already know the answer.
Why It Will Probably Pass
The measure is designed to affect fewer than 1% of San Diegans, and that alone tells you how this plays out. Councilmember Elo-Rivera’s framing is simple and effective: empty homes sit unused while working families can’t afford housing. Council President Pro Tem Kent Lee called it “about fairness and a reasonable use of housing.” Stephen Russell, CEO of the San Diego Housing Federation, said “San Diegans are being priced out while homes sit empty.”
That framing works on most voters because it targets someone else. If you don’t own a second home, this tax costs you nothing and promises to generate $9 million to $24 million (depending on which projection you believe) for a city that needs money. There’s no personal downside for the majority of people casting a ballot.
California voters have a long history with this dynamic. Measures that tax a visible minority of property owners to fund broadly popular goals tend to pass, even when the underlying policy is flawed. Los Angeles voters approved Measure ULA in 2022, slapping a 4% to 5.5% transfer tax on high-value property sales. It generated far less revenue than projected and is now facing its own legal and political challenges, but it passed easily because it sounded like it only affected wealthy sellers.
The calculus is human nature: if I can’t have it, why should you? Voters who can’t afford a second home have little reason to protect the property rights of people who can. The policy details, the constitutional questions, the enforcement problems, none of that survives a campaign where one side says “tax empty mansions to help families” and the other side says “actually, the Ellis Act preemption doctrine suggests this may violate the Takings Clause.” One of those fits on a yard sign.
What Voters Won’t Be Told
The ballot language has to be submitted to the Registrar of Voters by March 10. Here’s what won’t be in it.
The revenue projections are speculative. The city’s own Independent Budget Analyst estimates $9.2 million to $21.4 million in year one, depending on how many owners qualify for exemptions. Elo-Rivera’s office originally projected $51 million. That’s a gap you could park a budget deficit in. The conservative estimate of $9.2 million, after administrative and enforcement costs, won’t fund much of anything meaningful.
San Francisco’s identical tax was struck down. In October 2024, a Superior Court judge ruled San Francisco’s Measure M violated both the federal Takings Clause and was preempted by the California Ellis Act, which prohibits local governments from compelling property owners to rent their properties. The court found that financially penalizing owners for keeping units vacant is functionally the same as compelling them to rent. San Diego’s version has the same structure and the same vulnerability. Nobody on the council except Campillo thought that was worth examining before sending it to voters.
There’s no binding commitment on how the money gets spent. The revenue goes to the general fund. “Housing” is the stated purpose, but there’s no locked-in allocation, no oversight structure, and no mechanism to ensure a single dollar actually addresses housing affordability.
The enforcement creates a surveillance framework. Homeowners must prove their property isn’t vacant. The City Treasurer can inspect private records. There’s a mandatory 10-year record-keeping requirement. Miss the April 1 filing deadline and you owe a 10% penalty automatically. Over 50 people testified at the council hearing, with critics calling it exactly what it is: a guilty-until-proven-innocent system where the government tells you how to use your own property.
The Constitutional Question Nobody Wants to Answer
Campillo’s dissent matters because he’s the only person on the council who asked the obvious question: can this survive a legal challenge?
The San Francisco ruling left little ambiguity: the court held that taxing vacancy is functionally equivalent to compelling rental, which violates the Ellis Act and the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. The plaintiffs cited Yee v. City of Escondido and Bullock v. San Francisco to establish that financial penalties for declining to rent fall squarely within the Ellis Act’s prohibition.
San Diego’s version avoids the word “rent” but creates the same economic pressure. If your second home sits empty for more than 182 days and you aren’t living in it, you owe the city $8,000 to $15,000 per year. The practical effect is identical: occupy it, rent it, or pay a penalty. That’s the same structure the court rejected in San Francisco.
But here’s the thing about ballot measures: they can pass and then get litigated for years. By the time a court strikes it down, the city has already spent money on the election, built the enforcement infrastructure, and potentially collected revenue it has to return. The political benefit of putting it on the ballot is immediate. The legal consequences are someone else’s problem down the road.
What This Means for Property Owners
If you own a second home in San Diego city limits, start planning now. This measure will likely pass in June. That means:
Your property will be subject to the tax starting January 1, 2027, with the first bills going out in January 2028. You’ll need to either occupy the home, lease it, or qualify for one of the limited exemptions (military service, long-term care, disaster damage, financial hardship, probate). If none of those apply, budget an additional $8,000 to $15,000 per year in carrying costs.
If you’re considering buying a second home or investment property in San Diego, factor this into your analysis before committing. The annual tax changes the cash flow math on any property that isn’t going to be a primary residence or an active rental.
And if you care about where this kind of policy leads, vote on June 2 and make sure the people around you understand what they’re actually voting on, the real version and not the yard-sign version, because once it’s law, even a flawed one, unwinding it takes years and legal fees that individual property owners have to fund themselves.
Council President Joe LaCava said the measure “is not a silver bullet,” and he’s right because it’s not a solution to anything. But it will pass, because in California, the easiest tax to approve is the one that only applies to someone else.