1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I’m writing to urge you to put real teeth back into Senate Bill 789. As originally introduced, SB 789 would have placed a $5 per square foot annual tax on commercial properties sitting vacant for more than half the year, with the revenue going toward down payment assistance through the California Dream for All program. Somewhere in committee, the actual tax got stripped out, and what’s left is just a requirement that owners report their vacancy data to the state. That’s bookkeeping, not a policy that changes behavior. Drive through almost any city in this state right now and you’ll see the same thing: storefronts and office buildings sitting dark for years at a time. These aren’t harmless. Every vacant property drags down the block around it, pulls foot traffic away from the small businesses still hanging on next door, and generates nothing in sales tax revenue that cities and the state badly need. Leaving a building empty is currently the cheapest option for a lot of property owners, and that’s the exact incentive a vacancy tax is designed to fix. I’d rather see this addressed at the state level than left to each city to fight its own ballot battle. Right now, any city that wants to do this on its own has to clear Proposition 218’s voter-approval hurdle, which means thirty different cities running thirty different campaigns with thirty different definitions of “vacant.” A single statewide standard is more efficient, harder for property owners to dodge by simply operating across city lines, and gives California one clear rule instead of a patchwork. I’d also note that SB 789’s original design, applying only to commercial space and explicitly excluding residential units, was built to sidestep the kind of constitutional challenge currently working through the courts in San Francisco’s residential vacancy tax case. A commercial-only tax with sensible exemptions for active renovation, good-faith leasing efforts, and circumstances outside an owner’s control is a meaningfully different and more defensible policy than a tax on empty homes. I’d ask for your support in reinstating the tax provision in SB 789, or comparable legislation, with a real financial consequence attached to long-term vacancy rather than just a reporting requirement. Thank you for your time and consideration.