Property Rights Initiatives to be Before California Voters Again

Two new property rights initiatives have been certified for the ballot in June in California, with an additional proposal on the horizon.       

According to the Eminent Domain Reform Now coalition, the Homeowners Protection Act has qualified to be placed before the voters in California in June 2008.  This initiative, if passed, would provide solid protections for homeowners by prohibiting governments from taking an owner-occupied home to transfer to a private party.  The broad coalition supporting the Homeowners Protection Act includes seniors, homeowners, business, labor, environmentalists, affordable housing advocates, public safety leaders and local government. 

 Last week the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act qualified for the June ballot.  This measure contains a provision affecting the use of both rent control and inclusionary zoning, and many believe it would undermine a wide variety of other regulations by defining private use to include “regulation of the ownership, occupancy or use of privately owned real property or associated property rights in order to transfer economic benefit to one or more private persons at the expense of the property owner.” The proposition would also phase out rent control. Their fact sheet states that an outcome would be that. “Government may not set the price at which property owners sell or lease their property. However, existing rent regulations will remain in effect for current tenants as long as they live in their apartments or mobile homes.” The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California Farm Bureau, and some apartment and mobile-home park owners support the measure. The property owner’s website is http://www.yesonpropertyrights.com/    

For additional information on both of these initiatives and the campaign, visit http://eminentdomainreform.com/   

For more information about ballot measures across the country, check out the Initiative & Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California http://www.iandrinstitute.org/