In the midst of California’s severe housing shortage and a federal tax overhaul, a statewide ballot initiative was quietly submitted this fall with the idea of getting longtime, older owners to sell their homes, freeing them up for younger families to buy.

The proposal from the California Association of Realtors would expand Proposition 13, the landmark constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1978 that has kept homeowners’ property taxes artificially low over the years, even as their home values have doubled or even quadrupled. Under the initiative, homeowners who are over 55 or severely disabled would be able to keep those lower tax obligations for life, regardless of how many times they move, as long as they stay in California.

“A lot of older people — and I’m one of those older people, by the way — are feeling locked into their properties,” said Alex Creel, a lobbyist for the association, which is gathering signatures to qualify the measure. “They’re holding onto their property not because they like their house, but because they like their taxes.”

The proposal has touched a nerve in a state profoundly shaped by Proposition 13, which buffered homeowners from sharp tax increases while slashing revenue for schools and public services. Proponents argue that it could help solve the housing shortage by allowing empty-nesters to leave their long-time family homes without a steep tax hike, clearing the way for new buyers with children to move in. But many are wary of the idea, predicting it will only widen the generational wealth gap at the expense of public schools, local services and the poor.

“This seems like, ‘Let’s solve Prop. 13 by having more of it,’ ” said Laura Clark, executive director of San Francisco-based YIMBY Action, a pro-development, millennial-led group that has joined others in calling for reforms of the decades-old property tax law. “We’re talking about, once again, another tax giveaway to people who are wealthy.”

The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates the annual losses in tax revenue from giving older owners a break would grow to $1 billion or more for schools and at least $1 billion for cities and counties. And that’s even after taking into account the higher taxes paid by those buyers who would presumably purchase some of the new inventory.

A $1 billion hit is the last thing that California public schools need as they grapple with growing pension costs and enrollment declines accelerated by the housing crisis, even in traditionally stable districts like Albany and Cupertino Union, said Jody London, who has served on the school board of the financially struggling Oakland school district since 2009.

As London sees it, the proposal just “further digs in the shovel of the Prop. 13 problems.”

But Cheryl Shores, a 67-year-old Martinez retiree who worries that her daughter and son-in-law won’t be able to afford to buy a home in the Bay Area, thinks the measure could help shake up the market, bringing more young families into neighborhoods with strong schools. She said she knows a number of elderly widows living alone in the same beautiful, single-family homes in Lafayette and Moraga where they raised their children. Even though they would rather be in a smaller home, she says, they stay because of tax benefits they receive from Proposition 13.

“It’s very sad how many widows are staying in those homes,” she said, “when families can be in them.” Shores and her husband have lived in the same small house for 32 years and have no plans to move as long as their children live nearby.

Amendments passed in the 1980s already allow older homeowners to keep their lower Proposition 13 tax base if they move to similarly priced or cheaper homes within their counties — or to one of a handful of counties that have opted to accept property tax transfers. This ballot measure would expand those exemptions, allowing sellers to take their existing tax base with them to any home in the state, as many times as they move. If they buy a more expensive home, they would pay the difference between that base and the market value. If they move into a cheaper home, their tax bill would go down.

The California Association of Realtors — whose members would benefit from a larger inventory that would spark more sales and commissions — are now gathering the more than 585,000 voter signatures needed by late March to place the measure on the November 2018 ballot.

The initiative “turns the logic of Proposition 13 on its head,” said Thad Kousser, a California politics professor at UC San Diego. “This is not about keeping Grandma in her house, which is what Proposition 13 was all about. It’s about people trying to move up.”

The measure could appeal to young families frustrated by the dwindling supply of homes for sale, Kousser said, but opponents could make headway by arguing that the plan is just another tax cut for older homeowners — who will already get a huge windfall from the sale of their appreciated home. “`Why should we be protecting people who are moving up in the world at the expense of people who are trying to get their start?'” he said. “I can write those commercials.”

Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, who has spent years trying to tackle the housing crisis from Sacramento, does not support the initiative.

“It doesn’t add housing, and it is going to make it harder for cities and counties to pay for schools, infrastructure and public safety to the tune of $2 billion per year,” he said. “We’re in the midst of the most intense housing crisis our state has ever experienced, and this proposal does nothing to address it.”

The Legislative Analyst’s office said it’s not clear what effect the tax breaks would have on home prices, but it estimates the number of home sales would jump by tens of thousands per year.

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Letters: Quintessential small business | Corporate loophole | Prop. 15 a help | NBA leaders | PG&E rates | Lafayette council The measure “is selecting a set of winners for life,” said Mark Johnson, who bought his Los Gatos home in 1989. At 71, Johnson would be one of those winners. But he still thinks he would vote no.

“Like everybody else, if there’s a good opportunity, I’ll take it,” he said, “but it’s not a clever idea for the state.”