South Lake Tahoe voters turning down controversial proposed tax on vacant homes
In early voting, South Lake Tahoe residents are soundly rejecting a proposed tax on vacant homes that its many detractors said would have dramatically changed the identity of the vacation getaway.
Measure N asked whether the city should tax the owners of houses and apartments that are unoccupied most of the year.
Residents by overwhelming margins are saying no. With more than 6,000 votes cast, the measure is failing by a 3-to-1 margin (76% to 24%). Based on past elections, as many as 4,500 votes could be left to count but El Dorado County election officials are not expected to give counting updates until Friday.
Under Measure N, the city would have levied a $3,000 penalty on properties occupied less than half of a year.
The tax would have increased to $6,000 annually in subsequent years if homes remained mostly unused. Supporters argued the measure would encourage people to stay in their homes more often or to rent them.
Money from the tax could have been used for affordable housing projects, as well as for road work, transit and the cost of collecting and enforcing the penalty.
But the proposal roiled the popular vacation community as many residents and frequent visitors viewed it as an assault — on a way of life, the story of their homes, and on people with a property there who couldn’t vote on it because they primarily live somewhere else.
“This is probably the most controversial issue I’ve ever seen in Tahoe,” Tom Davis, a former South Lake Tahoe councilman and mayor who has lived in the city since 1971, said before the election.
South Lake Tahoe has long been known as a seasonal playground and its homes reflect that. The U.S. Census Bureau in 2022 estimated the city had more than 6,180 houses, apartments or other units that were only used occasionally. That was a 14% increase from a decade earlier.
The vacancies rub up against the rising costs of owning a home in South Lake Tahoe. The median value of owner-occupied properties was $571,700 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, an almost 53% increase from five years earlier, and a trend that South Lake Tahoe council member and outspoken Measure N supporter Scott Robbins called “unsustainable.”
“We have to stem this tide of the hollowing out of our community,” he said before the election.
This story was originally published November 6, 2024 at 10:05 AM.
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