Perhaps some of what Michael Ray says is uncomfortably true, but he fails to state the underlying cause of the reason young California families can no longer afford to buy a home in Laguna or almost anywhere in California without it being a tremendous financial burden. For that you can thank Proposition 13, the tax reform measure passed in 1978. It hurts local communities, schools, and infrastructure, and also carries the unfair burden of high property taxes for new, less wealthy homebuyers.
In a nutshell, Prop 13 set the tax rate at 1 percent (no more than 2 percent per year) and it changed the way California assesses property. Assessments are now based on purchase price, rather than on current market value. It’s a boon for older homeowners who have hung onto their property for a long time, but it’s a burden for young families buying homes at greatly inflated prices.
We pay less than half the amount of taxes our son pays in Marin County, and our home in Laguna is worth three times the value of his! Is it time to change Prop 13? It means looking at Prop 13 with an eye toward addressing inequities in the system. Suggestions anyone? This tax reform measure that brought relief to our generation should not bury future generations in debt.
By the way, Michael Ray, as seniors, we do care in Laguna. We object to your mean-spirited ageism in order to promote your own pro-development Liberate Laguna agenda.
Preserve and protect our village.
Charlotte and Alex Masarik, Laguna Beach
Bravo! I love the Independent, but Michael Ray’s babbling is an embarrassment not only to the paper but to all residents (has anyone ever read the stuff about Petra the hot blonde without cringing?).
Michael Ray said what needed to be said. As a millennial Laguna resident, I watch Laguna’s decline accelerate daily. Any sort of social nightlife scene is dead. Good luck trying to get a chef-curated dinner anywhere past 10PM. Elistist NIMBYs masking themselves as environmentalists are driving away businesses and renters. Vacancies and turnover rates increase exponentially. And to suggest that increasing taxes would remedy this inequity is the most absurd and dishonest notion I have ever seen. More like throwing water on an oil fire. Repealing Prop 13 would immediately backfire when the retired and elderly get kicked out of their appreciated homes because they are on fixed incomes. The very concept of a property tax on non-productive land is theoretically corrupt, but too abstract to explain here. Removing prop 13 without addressing the underlying systemic problems, will not result in an increase in tax revenue, merely more people moving out of state. Ray’s critics forget that many people in Laguna Beach are actually not millionaires even though their homes have appreciated. Us plebeians need AirBnB or a granny flat to pay our mortgages and bills. Scholarly literature shows that home price appreciation only started its exponential growth in the late 1970s as a direct result of CEQA and restrictive zoning. Coastal housing used to be cheap and had very low appreciation. The only solution is to attack the underlying structural problems restricting market forces, stop arbitrary government restriction, destroy the NIMBY regime, and generate an organic, decentralized return to affordable housing.
Charlotte and Alex, not sure what your smoking. Firstly Liberate Laguna has as much pro-developement in it’s gills as does Village Laguna. Secondly Prop 13 has nothing to do with younger residents being to able to afford to live here. Laguna is pricey because of it’s location, period. There’s plenty of affordable housing in Anaheim, Santa Ana and Norco, it’s just not as desirable. Repealing Prop 13 won’t change it, but it will kick tens of thousands of people out of their homes when their tax bill triple.
Laguna is terrible for millennials. Nothing to do at all, so young people sit at home and do drugs. We have an epidemic of drugs and suicide in this city that is never spoken about. The older, richer demographic of this city need to wake the hell up and provide, safe and FUN resources for our adolescents.