Joint statement by East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO), Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO), Generation Housing (Gen H), and Silicon Valley at Home (SV@Home).
We are affordable housing developers, community organizers, tenant advocates, and community land trusts working across the Bay Area.
We write in united opposition to AB 736 (Wicks), the transfer-tax limitation bill amended on June 22 and now pending before the Senate Local Government Committee.
AB 736 would impose a permanent statewide cap on local real estate transfer taxes — one of the few revenue tools California cities still meaningfully control, and one of the most important sources of funding for affordable housing in our region. We urge the Legislature to reject it.
Transfer taxes built much of the affordable housing our communities depend on.
Since Proposition 13 stripped local governments of meaningful property-tax authority in 1978, transfer taxes — charged when high-value property changes hands — have become an essential, locally controlled source of funding for affordable homes. In San Francisco alone, the increase voters approved through Proposition I generated roughly $324 million between 2021 and 2024, much of it directed toward acquiring, preserving, and building affordable housing. Cities and counties throughout the Bay Area rely on these same tools to meet the same crisis.
AB 736 would lock in a permanent ceiling — with no sunset.
The bill caps combined local transfer taxes and, critically, restricts the ability of cities to dedicate transfer-tax revenue to affordable housing and other community priorities. Revenue that voters choose to set aside for housing — rather than route through the general fund — is precisely the revenue the bill would first constrain. Measures our communities are advancing right now — to dedicate transfer-tax revenue to affordable housing, and to close loopholes that let high-value transfers escape taxation altogether — would be undercut before voters ever get the chance to weigh in.
This is a question of local democracy.
Bay Area voters have approved transfer-tax measures repeatedly, with eyes open, to fund the housing their neighbors need. AB 736 would override those decisions from Sacramento and foreclose future ones — permanently. A cap with no sunset is not a compromise. It is a standing constraint on every city’s ability to respond to a housing emergency that is far from over.
We reject the false choice.
We share the goal of protecting California cities from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association’s far more destructive November ballot measure. But trading away local revenue authority without Howard Jarvis agreeing to pull the ballot measure is tantamount to bidding against ourselves, surrendering ground we cannot afford to lose. Defending against a harmful initiative cannot mean writing a permanent cut into State law ourselves.
The Bay Area faces a multi-billion-dollar affordable housing funding gap. We need more tools—not fewer—to adequately protect tenants, preserve the affordable housing we have, and produce the homes our communities need.
We respectfully urge the Senate Local Government Committee and the full Legislature to oppose AB 736 as written.
Signed,
East Bay Housing Organizations, Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO), Generation Housing, and SV@Home