Airbnb gets the last laugh, for now.
San Francisco’s housing crisis reared its head in this week’s election in the form of Prop F. A measure geared at limiting short term rentals in the city. Those in favor of Prop F point to the sole use of buildings for short term rentals and wanted the measure to pass so more could be done for full time residents of the city. Those opposing the measure posited that the short term rentals do in fact benefit the city. When the ballots were cast, Prop F failed to pass by a 55-45 margin. Airbnb led the opposition with contributions totaling more than $8 million.
Around the state, seven cities had sales tax measures up for consideration. All but Modesto’s Measure G passed. All seven approved measures carried with comfortable voting margins with the lowest amount of support for a winning measure being 59%. The cities that passed new sales tax measures include Dunsmuir, Greensfield (two measures), Hercules, Novato, and San Mateo.
Finer grain analysis of Prop F can be found here.
Links to all the sales tax measures are here.