By Katie Barnett, Manager of Civic Leadership Strategy
This November, Bay Area voters will decide measures that shape who can afford to stay in their homes and what gets built in our communities for years to come. From statewide bonds to city-level questions about parking lots and rent, this year’s ballot touches nearly every lever that affects housing: how we pay for it, where it goes, and how renters are protected.
These are the measures we’re watching this fall.
No matter how you’re voting, it’s important to make your voice heard. Here are links to help you check your voter registration status, find your polling place, and learn about what’s on your ballot in 2026.
Bay Area Ballot Trends
Tenant protections return to local ballots, with notable differences in coalition support.
Berkeley, San Pablo, and Redwood City will each vote on tenant protection measures. Berkeley’s Measure X updates its existing rent ordinance with several changes, including allowing the Rent Board to waive certain fees for nonprofit affordable housing developers. Redwood City’s Measure E lacks a similar carve-out, an omission that has led the mayor and other would-be supporters to oppose or stay neutral for fear it would make new affordable housing prohibitively expensive to operate.
“Save our parking lots” is 2026’s NIMBY rallying cry.
Menlo Park and Los Altos both face citizen-led measures that, if passed, would require voter approval before the cities could make any substantial changes to downtown parking plazas. First seen in Eureka in 2024, this marks the first appearance in the Bay Area of this specific battle over local land use. Due to their proximity to transit, many cities have chosen parking plazas as potential redevelopment sites for meeting state-mandated housing goals in the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) process. Menlo Park is currently reviewing proposals to turn three of its plazas into affordable housing, and Los Altos has flagged downtown parcels for 124 homes in its state-certified Housing Element. Surface parking lots are beloved by merchants and shoppers, but present some of the best opportunities for infill development now that RHNA goals are being enforced. Unsurprisingly, long-time residents of smaller towns and cities are using parking lots as a reason to block affordable development.
San Francisco is weighing two ways to fund affordable housing without raising taxes.
Prop C would gradually increase the city’s yearly contribution to the Housing Trust Fund from about $51 million to $125 million. Prop I would set aside 50% of revenue from an existing tax on property sales to fund affordable housing and tenant protections. Prop C is backed by the city, and some advocacy groups initially involved in drafting Prop I negotiated to strengthen Prop C in exchange for dropping their plans to put Prop I on the ballot. A group of housing advocates collected signatures and got Prop I on the ballot anyway. Some elected officials are now concerned that both measures could pass, taking a much larger chunk of the General Fund than they anticipated. Mayor Daniel Lurie has been a particularly outspoken critic of Prop I.
Statewide and Regional Measures
- Proposition 1: An $11.25 billion general obligation bond for housing, including $7.2 billion for affordable multifamily rental housing, $1.1 billion for homeownership assistance, and additional funds for farmworker, student, and tribal housing, and veterans’ home loans. California has no large, ongoing funding source for affordable housing, so one-time bonds like this one are a critical resource.
- Proposition 37: Creates a “middle-class homeownership loan” administered by CalHFA that would cover up to 17 percent of the purchase price of newly constructed homes for buyers with household incomes up to 200 percent of the Area Median Income. Notably, this program would not give preference to first-time or first-generation buyers, and wouldn’t exclude current homeowners. That equity gap would indirectly perpetuate historic housing discrimination against Black and Latino households.
- Proposition 43: A constitutional amendment that would raise the voter threshold needed to pass citizen-initiated local special taxes from a simple majority to two-thirds, starting January 1, 2027. Taxes placed on the ballot by local governments already need a two-thirds supermajority, so this would narrow the path that citizen initiatives have used since 2017. That path has been an important source of dedicated local funding, not only for housing and homelessness solutions, but for wildfire prevention, education, local roads and transit, and other essential infrastructure and services.
- Proposition 45: A citizen initiative that would amend the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to speed up review of projects it designates as “essential,” including housing, schools, transportation, and water and energy infrastructure. Agencies would face a 365-day deadline to complete environmental reviews, and courts would have to rule on related lawsuits within 270 days. AB 130, enacted in 2025, already exempts qualifying urban infill housing from CEQA. Prop 45 complements that legislation by creating an optional fast-track process for housing and other projects that remain subject to review.
- Regional Transit Measure: A 14-year sales tax to fund day-to-day operations for BART, Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit, and other agencies. The tax would be half a cent in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties and one cent in San Francisco, raising roughly $980 million a year. Voters put it on the ballot by petition, so it needs only a simple majority to pass. Reliable transit is essential for households with extremely low incomes, and transit corridors are where much of the region’s affordable housing is located and planned.
Local Measures
Voters in the Bay Area will consider additional housing issues this year, including:
Berkeley:
- Measure X: Would strengthen existing tenant protections by keeping tenants covered by rent stabilization for the length of their tenancy, even if their unit later becomes eligible for an exemption; expanding tenant-association rights to smaller buildings; and capping any single rent increase at 10 percent. It would also allow the Rent Board to waive registration fees for nonprofit affordable housing.
Half Moon Bay
- Measure Q: Would allow the city to enact its planned agreement with Mercy Housing California to build 40 units of affordable senior housing for farmworkers. Half Moon Bay is currently being sued by the state for noncompliance with housing element law. This project accounts for 14 percent of the lower-income housing the city is obligated to plan for, so a no vote would leave the city further out of compliance and extend the time it is subject to the “builder’s remedy.”
San Pablo
- Measure S: Would cap annual rent increases at 60 percent of inflation or 3 percent, whichever is lower, for multifamily units built before 1995, and extend just-cause eviction protections to roughly 3,100 more units, including mobile homes. It does not include fee exemptions for nonprofit affordable housing.
San Francisco
- Proposition C: Would more than double the City’s required annual contribution to the Housing Trust Fund, from about $51 million to $125 million, phased in starting in fiscal year 2028-29, and expand what the fund can pay for. The measure is intended to offset the City’s decision this year to lower its inclusionary housing requirement for new developments from 15 percent to 5 percent.
- Proposition I: Would dedicate half of the existing transfer tax on property sales of $10 million or more to affordable housing, preservation, and homelessness prevention. This would redirect half of the future revenue generated by an existing tax that voters approved in 2020.
Menlo Park
- Measure P: Would require voter approval before the City can sell, lease, or change the use of any of its eight downtown parking plazas. The City is currently evaluating bids to convert three of these plazas into housing.
Redwood City:
- Measure E: Would cap annual rent increases at 5 percent or 60 percent of inflation, whichever is lower, limit evictions to just-cause, and raise relocation assistance amounts. It does not include fee exemptions for nonprofit affordable housing.
Los Altos:
- Measure D: Would require voter approval before the City can sell, lease, or change the use of its ten downtown parking plazas, with an exception for two plazas that could be developed for affordable housing.
What’s next
See positions that All Home has taken on State and Regional Measures.
Ballots get mailed out starting October 5, and Election Day is November 3. For more on our work this year, check out our Policy & Advocacy page.
See you at the ballot box!
