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Comment by jcoffland | Hacker News Reader

Prop 13 limits increases in property taxes. It's removal would do little to ameliorate the housing shortage. Sure it might push some old people out of their homes and there by free up a few houses but it will increase the cost of ownership and therefore the cost of housing. This would benefit only very rich new comers. Why would we want that?

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It might not fix the shortage, but could be expected to increase mobility, such that people can move to a different part of the bay when they change jobs, or downsize or upsize when life changes. That's at least a step towards addressing a shortage.

That's a pretty weak argument against Prop 13.

I'm not making the argument to repeal prop 13. It's been made many times, better than I could ever make it. Only a google away.

Prop 13 isn’t good or bad, it’s ugly. It was supposed to protect poor and elderly people from losing their homes. The problem is, only a certain generation got it. It’s led to significant stagnation of housing for middle-class retirees.

Prop 13 needs to be extended to all persons perpetually under a certain income or over a certain age for their primary residence.

The other issue is new housing construction supply, which while providing new living spaces, reduces demand also impacts open space.

Maybe folks don’t remember the valley when there were fewer buildings. Heck, I remember a corn and pumpkin field across from the middle school I went to in south San Jose that’s now yet another soul-less strip-mall.

The Valley needs to balance concerns of open space/urban sprawl, building height/ ascetics, traffic/transport, property values, non-tech workers unable to save for retirement and homelessness.

Prop 13 reduces city income from residents, so cities prefer to zone for offices instead. When Mountain View has offices that provide jobs from 10x people, but housing for only x, that means the richest x will get the housing (pushing up prices) while the other 9x have to commute in from far away.

Result: expensive housing and bad traffic. Prop 13 is a classic case of "road to hell paved with good intentions".

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