LA Times hits back with Measure ULA op-ed

Days after the Southern California News Group, the newspaper chain whose titles include the Los Angeles Daily News and Orange County Register, published an op-ed blasting the City of L.A.’s controversial new transfer tax, the Los Angeles Times has come out with its own editorial supporting the measure.

“We hope this measure prevails in court,” the Times editorial board wrote in a piece published Friday. “We can’t make a dent in homelessness until we produce more affordable housing.”

The op-ed goes on to call Measure ULA, the controversial property transfer tax that the city’s voters passed by referendum in November, “the greatest gift” new L.A. Mayor Karen Bass could have received in her mission to tackle the city’s homelessness crisis, because of the ongoing funding source the measure is expected to provide.

The measure, scheduled to take effect in April, applies to all commercial and residential property deals in the city above $5 million. It adds a 4 percent tax on deals above $5 million, with the rate increasing to 5.5 percent on deals above $10 million. It is expected to raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually that will be dedicated to homeless housing and services. The high end of the estimate is more than $1 billion annually, a sum that helped lead proponents to declare Measure ULA “the largest housing ballot measure in American history.”

The Times editorial comes amid a fresh spotlight on the measure, which is vehemently opposed by much of the real estate industry, because of a recent court challenge. In late December, the landlord advocacy group Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed a lawsuit — first reported by TRD — that argues it’s invalid because the specific allocation of the funds qualifies Measure ULA as a special tax, rather than a general tax, which the suit claims the City of L.A. doesn’t have the authority to impose.

There seems to be little question the measure as it passed does amount to a special tax, but the courts’ view on the question of the city’s authority to impose it remains unclear. The Southern California News Group’s op-ed, published earlier this week, supported the challenge to the measure, which it decried as “absurd” and “a massive money grab” — descriptions that seem to match many industry players’ thoughts exactly.

The L.A. Times editorial urged a swift court resolution to the issue so that the money could start flowing as voters intended. “Clearly, voters wanted to see something big and swift done to create more affordable housing in a city that has fallen behind year after year in producing it,” it said.

The Times op-ed also included a statement from Laura Raymond, a Measure ULA campaign co-chair, who suggested the tax did have legal standing.

“The California Supreme Court has made it clear that our power as citizens to place the measure on the ballot is broad,” Raymond said, “and at least four recent decisions of the Court of Appeal have made it clear that City Charters cannot limit the initiative power to propose special taxes.”

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