By Alexei Koseff in The Sacramento Bee

January 12, 2016

Amending the property tax limits of California’s watershed Proposition 13 is a perennial topic at the Capitol – but it’s rare you hear the conversation initiated by a Republican.

Addressing criticism that businesses are able to avoid reassessment of their commercial properties by creatively structuring changes in ownership, state Sen. Pat Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, is pursuing a bill this session she says would close that loophole. The measure would trigger review when more than 90 percent of ownership interests are sold or transferred to related parties over the course of three years. Senate Bill 259 will be heard in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee, 9:30 a.m. in Room 112.

By Aaron Kinney in the San Jose Mercury News

January 10, 2016

SACRAMENTO — More than a year after a judge ordered Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla to open Martins Beach to the public, the beach remains closed, and the setting of the long-running melodrama has shifted to the state capital, where an obscure but powerful state agency will soon decide whether to force the mogul to sell a right of way for the public to roam his coastal paradise.

But as the State Lands Commission, a bureau that oversees California’s coastal boundary disputes, studies using eminent domain for the first time in its 78-year history, a thorny question looms: Where’s the money?

Read more at the San Jose Mercury News

By Ralph Vartabedian in the LA Times

January 3, 2016

By Jon Coupal in California Political Review

January 5, 2016

The attacks on Proposition 13 began within a few days after its overwhelming passage by California voters on June 6, 1978. Over the last three and half decades, this landmark taxpayer protection has been assailed in the Legislature, the courts and by ballot initiatives sponsored by tax-and-spend interests. These assaults continue to this day.

In a development that has surprised taxpayer advocates and the business community, a new attack on Proposition 13 is quickly gaining traction. Filed as an initiative with the sympathetic title of “Lifting Children and Families Out of Poverty Act,” the proposal would impose a massive $6 billion property tax increase on both homeowners and business properties. Its primary backer is Conway Collis, a former member of the California Board of Equalization.

Read more at California Political Review

ROW OF VACATED HOMES TO BE RAZED FOR HIGH-SPEED RAIL EAST OF HANFORD

By Seth Nidever in the Hanford Sentinel

January 8, 2016

The line of six boarded-up homes on the west side of Ponderosa Road in a little neighborhood tucked off Lacey Boulevard east of Hanford might look like urban blight, but don’t be fooled.

It’s the most visible sign of high-speed rail eventually coming to Kings County.

The homes have been purchased by the California High-Speed Rail Authority through eminent domain, the legal process by which governments can acquire private property for public projects.

read more at the Hanford Sentinel

By Kathleen M Howley in Bloomberg Business
July 28, 2015

The share of Americans who own their homes fell to the lowest level in almost five decades, extending a multiyear decline as families struggle to regain ground lost during the financial crisis and rentals gain favor.

The U.S. homeownership rate was 63.4 percent in the second quarter, down from 63.7 percent in the previous three months, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. It was lowest reading since 1967.

Would-be homebuyers have been held back by stringent mortgage standards and wage growth that hasn’t kept up with surging home prices. The average household income in June was 4 percent below a record high set in early 2008, even as unemployment dropped to its pre-recession rate, according to Sentier Research LLC.

Read the complete article at Bloomberg Business