June 18, 2026
What you need to know:
- Today, the Los Angeles City Council took the first step towards placing a measure on the November ballot that would make deep cuts to programs that keep people housed through Measure ULA funding.
- These cuts would result in tens of millions of dollars being cut from programs that build affordable housing and combat homelessness each year.
- A ballot measure is not needed to optimize ULA. The City Council’s own Ad Hoc Committee offered more constructive proposals last month. Those proposals are expected at City Council very soon.
- Measure ULA already won at the ballot box and was voted into law by a clear majority of Angelenos.
Pull quote:
“Placing a measure regarding ULA on the November ballot would be a financial and strategic mistake especially in light of more targeted recommendations out of the Ad Hoc Committee,” said Joe Donlin, executive director of the United to House LA Coalition. “Not only would making cuts to ULA when its programs are working hurt the people of Los Angeles and worsen our city’s housing crisis, but a ballot measure would only serve to help the anti-democratic Taxpayer Deception Act win in November.”
Full statement:
Today, the Los Angeles City Council voted to take the first steps toward placing a measure on the November ballot that would exempt multi-family and residential mixed-use projects sold within ten years of construction from the ULA transfer tax. If this ballot measure were to pass, it could mean tens of millions of dollars per year cut from programs that build affordable housing and combat homelessness. Two city reports by the LA Housing Department and the City Administrative Officer highlight the deep costs such changes would have.
The United to House LA coalition opposes a local ballot measure that would cut ULA funds. The coalition opposes a ballot measure not only because it would hurt programs that are actively helping end the housing crisis in Los Angeles, but also because such a move plays into the hands of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association and its allies in the real estate lobby. The Taxpayer Deception Act must be stopped, not bolstered by a local ballot measure that will divert resources away from the campaign to defeat Jarvis.
A ballot measure is unnecessary in light of the work done by the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Measure ULA. The committee’s recommendations are far more targeted changes that address concerns of ULA’s critics without fundamentally harming the successful work being done across Los Angeles with transfer tax funds. A thoughtfully-designed multifamily exemption and technical amendments that will strengthen ULA came out of a two-month process by the Ad Hoc Committee.
These adjustments will be in front of the Council soon. The directives to draft a ballot measure that were passed today are not the only option on the table, and it is disappointing to see movement in this direction before more sensible paths forward—recommended by councilmembers—have been discussed.
A local ballot measure would also give further legitimacy to false claims. The real estate lobby has repeatedly said that ULA is hurting the construction of affordable housing in Los Angeles, going so far as trumpeting flawed studies to advance this false argument. In fact, it has been proven that ULA is not stopping projects from penciling out or hampering multi-family construction.
ULA has already won at the Los Angeles ballot box, and 58% of Angelenos passed the measure into law in November 2022. Relitigating ULA under false pretenses ignores the will of the voters that made the measure the law of the land.
Addressing City Council, Ariel Moore, Deputy Policy Director for the LA County Federation of Labor said, “Despite what we’ve heard for months, ULA is working. It’s building houses, it’s preventing homelessness. So the question isn’t whether ULA needs to go back on the ballot. The question is which side are you on? The side that wants to build more affordable housing or the side that wants to cut funding almost in half and send us into another political fight. That’s what these proposals do.”