Stanford's Suit Re Property Tax Exemption Keeps Palo Alto Rich, White and Very Exclusive

Property tax exemption should help not hurt the poor.

Stanford University owns more charitably exempt property, by value, than any other owner in California. 

Stanford University recently surpassed the Getty Museum in Los Angeles as the largest recipient of property tax exemptions in California. The university received more than $16.8 billion in tax exemptions last year for its various campus properties, nearly half of the $35.2 billion of property tax exemptions in the county, according to the Santa Clara County Assessor.  

Stanford Law School

Dude, have you ever tried to rent a place in Palo Alto?  Thirty five hundred bucks for 800 square feet, probably above a well-patronized restaurant too, with plenty of cats and dogs hissing and howling all night long.  And racoons dumpster diving. Property tax exemption, if consumed in mass quantities, excludes the poor by driving up prices scarcely affordable to even middle income earners.  Good grief.  Palo Alto's population is 53% White, 34% Asian, and 2% black; the median family income in Palo Alto is very near $200,000.  

Still, Stanford's suit for a refund for taxes paid on faculty residences should probably win.  Stanford grants long term leases to faculty in a 450 acre subdivision "tucked away" on campus.  But it retains certain rights, primarily to restrict transfer of the leases to people who don't teach at Stanford.  Stanford very sensibly wants the value of the retained interest to be exempt from taxation, arguing that the retained interest is necessary and conducive to its charitable mission because it ensures faculty can obtain affordable housing in Palo Alto.  Without Stanford and taxpayer subsidized housing, the argument goes, faculty would not be able to work at Stanford. I just think the argument inadvertently admits a whole lot, implicitly if not explicitly.  

Stanford's suit doesn't explicitly admit that "faculty will not be able to afford housing because our tax exemption helps keep prices higher than almost every other place on earth."   I mean is it just me or do you see the irony too!  Faculty cannot afford housing, as in other college towns, because the Stanford has removed so many properties from the tax rolls that unaffiliated homeowners living, and businesses operating in the whole county must shoulder a huge tax burden -- nearly $17 billion annually - and that burden is invariably reflected in the cost of housing, goods, and services in Palo Alto and surrounding communities.

So Stanford is suing under a law that increases the cost of housing because faculty cannot afford housing in an unnaturally inflationary market that Stanford's tax exemption helps keep inflationary!  Well, thank you sir may I have another?  The law seems on their side but this should not be how any of this works!

darryll jones