![\"Placeholder\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/placeholder.png\")
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Measure ULA<\/a>\u00a0just crossed the $1B threshold. An update to the city\u2019s revenue tracker for the real estate transfer tax shows that, through the end of November\u00a02025, ULA\u00a0has generated $1.03B<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n That money goes to city coffers for use in a variety of housing-focused programs,\u00a0including funding for new deed-restricted affordable housing\u00a0and rental assistance\u00a0to keep vulnerable Angelenos in their homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo city in the country has a permanent source of funding as big as this and as comprehensive in its approach,\u201d said\u00a0Joe Donlin<\/a>, the director of\u00a0United to House LA<\/a>, the coalition that mobilized to pass Measure ULA.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a funding source that’s essential in light of proposed federal cuts that stand to affect affordable housing funds and ever-tightening budgets at the state level for these types of projects and programs, Donlin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the summer, the city council approved a plan to spend roughly $425M from Measure ULA, with the money going to affordable housing and homelessness prevention programs including eviction defense,\u00a0the Los Angeles Times reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAll this means that LA is in a strong position to make significant gains to address our housing affordability crisis, thanks to ULA,\u201d Donlin said.<\/p>\n Early projections of how much money ULA would raise per year were between $672M and $1.1B, but those proved to be ambitious and\u00a0were revised<\/a>\u00a0to the lower figure right before it went into effect in April 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n ULA adds a 4% tax on transactions of more than $5M and a 5.5% tax on transactions over $10M.\u00a0<\/p>\n But\u00a0Shane Phillips<\/a>, the co-author of a 2025 report that argued ULA was kneecapping multifamily production, said the slow start to the measure was \u201centirely predictable,\u201d citing, among other things, the rush to sell by many property owners prior to the measure\u2019s start date.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phillips, who is the housing initiative project manager with the University of California, Los Angeles\u2019 Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, added that while the revenue has grown over time and has become a good\u00a0funding source for housing-focused city programs, he doesn\u2019t imagine that\u00a0the high annual projections proponents imagined will be reached \u201cany time soon.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The $1B milestone comes after a year rife with tests for the measure as well as challenges to its existence.\u00a0<\/p>\n Spurred by the Eaton and Palisades fires in January, Mayor Karen Bass asked the city council to explore\u00a0pausing the transfer tax<\/a>\u00a0in the Palisades for a period of time to speed up recovery and remove barriers for property owners\u00a0looking to sell<\/a>\u00a0damaged or destroyed homes. The proposal is working its way through the approval process, which includes a vetting from the city attorney to see if it is feasible.<\/p>\n Bass has also\u00a0sought to tweak property eligibility<\/a>, exempting commercial properties, not just housing, that\u00a0are 15 years and younger by going to state legislators. The proposal was withdrawn, but Bass vowed to amend the legislation and reintroduce it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two studies in the spring came out that indicated that ULA had\u00a0throttled commercial real estate deals<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0stifled the production of new multifamily housing<\/a>\u00a0since its inception.\u00a0<\/p>\n A ballot measure to invalidate Measure ULA and prevent other ballot measures from being approved by the same margins has been gathering signatures to appear on the November 2026 ballot.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association<\/a>, which is backing the measure, has to collect at least 874,641 valid signatures by Feb. 25 to get it on the ballot. So far, it has only certified that\u00a025% of the signatures it needs<\/a>\u00a0to have by next month have been collected.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Measure ULA\u00a0just crossed the $1B threshold. An update to the city\u2019s revenue tracker for the real estate transfer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[65416,48,52,51,47,65414,50,49,3719,65415],"class_list":{"0":"post-126082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-joe-donlin","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-headlines","11":"tag-la-news","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-los-angeles-affordable-housing","14":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","15":"tag-los-angeles-news","16":"tag-measure-ula","17":"tag-shane-phillips"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}