Oakland taxes hit deep East Oakland's homes up to 48% harder than Rockridge's
The Measure E parcel tax, if approved by voters on June 2, would continue a historic trend of disproportionately burdening East Oakland neighborhoods.
PART FOUR IN A SERIES
Editors’ note
Oakland Report is examining the many taxes the City of Oakland charges its residents and businesses: what the taxes were intended to pay for, how they were actually used, and whether the city kept the promises it made to voters.
The first three installments in this series examined how the city repeatedly breaks its promises in tax measures, uses threats of fire station closures to convince voters to approve new taxes, and charges residents more while giving them less.
This installment examines the disproportionate impact of flat-rate parcel taxes — including Oakland’s latest proposed parcel tax, Measure E — through the lens of Oakland’s historically disparate economic and demographic landscape.
Oakland Report provides accurate, unflinching, data-driven reporting and analysis that you will find nowhere else. If you value our nonprofit work, please subscribe, share, and donate.
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Part 4
Oakland’s regressive parcel tax landscape
A typical Oakland homeowner now pays between seven and ten overlapping parcel taxes in addition to the baseline 1% ad valorem (Latin for “according to the value”) property tax set by state law. Oakland’s largest parcel taxes include:
Measure NN (2024): $198 per single-family parcel / $132 per multi-family unit for City of Oakland public safety services.
Measure E (proposed): This City of Oakland tax would be $192 per single-family parcel / $131 per multi-family unit for public safety services. If approved by voters on June 2, the new tax would be in addition to, not replacing Measure NN.
Measure G (2008): $195 per parcel for Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) operations.
Measure G1 (2016): $120 per parcel for OUSD teacher retention.
Measure H (2022): $120 per parcel for OUSD college and career readiness programs.
Measure C (2022): $114.50 per single-family parcel / $132 per multi-family unit for City of Oakland library services, with annual inflation increases.
Measure MM (2024): City of Oakland, $99 per single-family parcel (within the defined wildfire prevention zone) for 20 years, with annual inflationary increases.
Measure D (2018): $75 per single-family parcel / $51.24 per multi-family unit for City of Oakland library services, with annual inflationary increases.
Various Mello-Roos Community Facilities District charges, depending on subdivision.
The cumulative result is that Oakland charges among the highest taxes per capita in the state compared to similar cities.1
The combined effective tax rate of these parcel taxes, calculated as a percentage of property value, ranges from a low of 1.50% in affluent, majority-white zip code 94618 (Rockridge in north Oakland), up to 2.22% in predominantly Black and Hispanic zip code 94621 (Elmhurst in deep East Oakland).2
In other words, Oakland’s parcel taxes financially hit homes in deep East Oakland up to 48% harder than homes in Rockridge, as measured by percentage of median home value.
Oakland’s Measure E, if approved by voters, would escalate the tax disparity
If voters approve Measure E on June 2, Oakland’s disparate taxation across neighborhoods would escalate even further.
Over the 20-year life of Measure E, a typical deep East Oakland homeowner would pay over three times the share of their housing wealth compared to the share of wealth a typical Rockridge homeowner would pay, for presumably identical citywide public safety services.
The 20 years of cumulative $3,840 parcel tax payments (not including inflationary increases) would equal 0.24% of a Rockridge home’s current value, and 0.81% of a deep East Oakland home’s current value.
The disparate financial impacts of Oakland’s flat-rate parcel taxes reflect a historic trend of disproportionately burdening communities of color — a direct legacy of the racially discriminatory “redlining” policies of the 20th century, perhaps most famously documented in the landmark study and book, The Color of Law.3
A flat parcel tax is not racially discriminatory in and of itself, and it is important to note that correlation does not necessarily affirm causation.
However, economic and demographic data show that in present-day Oakland, multiple layers of flat-rate parcel taxes extract a larger effective share from the same neighborhoods that the historic discriminatory “redlining” maps of the 20th century once shaded red.
Parcel taxes are regressive
Empirical studies have concluded that flat-rate parcel taxes are regressive. The primary basis for this conclusion is that unlike ad valorem property taxes that are calculated as a percentage of a property’s value, parcel taxes typically impose a flat dollar amount per parcel regardless of property value.45
In terms of residential homes, the practical result of flat-rate parcel taxes is that low- and middle-income homeowners pay a higher effective tax rate than the wealthiest homeowners.
The data indicates that the impacts of this regressive form of taxation are particularly stark in Oakland, where parcel taxes are numerous, and wealth disparity, as measured by median home values, varies widely across neighborhoods.
As a result, the financial burden of flat parcel taxes falls most heavily on modest homes and small apartment buildings rather than on high-end homes and luxury apartments.
Studies have shown that this cumulative pattern—lower assessed values combined with higher effective rates, lower homeownership, and flat-rate assessments—produces a disparate racial impact even where the tax is nominally neutral.67
Oakland’s parcel taxes reinforce this pattern in three ways:
They are flat. A flat parcel tax stack consumes a larger share of monthly income for middle- and lower-income homeowners— including long-tenured Black and Hispanic residents in historic neighborhoods of color.
They are cumulative. With seven to ten overlapping parcel taxes now common, Oakland tax bills regularly add $600–$1,000 or more per year in flat assessments, irrespective of home values or the homeowners’ ability to pay.
They increase over time. For example, Measure MM (2024) permits annual cost-of-living escalation up to 5%, and Measure NN (2024) increased the single-family public-safety parcel tax from $133.45 to $198 in a single renewal cycle.
Oakland’s parcel taxes typically include exemptions for qualifying low-income homeowners. However, uptake is limited by awareness and annual reapplication burdens, and exemptions do not address the disparity of middle-income households (who do not qualify for exemptions) paying relatively higher tax rates than wealthy ones.
Regressive taxation continues a historic trend of disproportionately burdening and displacing Oakland’s historic communities of color
Overall, the regressive nature of parcel taxes places a disproportionate burden on Oakland’s homeowners of color. The correlation of home values and racial demographics in Oakland is the legacy of racially discriminatory policies of the past.
The 1937 Home Owners’ Loan Corporation residential map graded West Oakland, Fruitvale, and the East Oakland flatlands “red” or “yellow” (thus the term “redlining”), which had the effect of denying federally insured mortgages to the non-white families funneled into those neighborhoods by restrictive covenants, segregated public housing, and racially zoned subdivision ordinances — a de jure segregation by the government at every level.8
This cycle was continued in the 1950s and 1960s with the Interstate 980 and Cypress freeway alignments that destroyed tens of thousands of homes in the city’s historically Black neighborhoods, the urban-renewal clearances that leveled whole blocks of West Oakland housing stock, and the freeway-severed flatlands that became subject to long-term municipal disinvestment.9
As a result, homeowners in affluent zip codes accumulated federally subsidized equity for decades while those in less affluent zip codes were systematically prevented from doing so in equal measure.
Today, Oakland has the deepest racial home ownership disparities in the nation for Black households. Black households in the City of Oakland had the highest mortgage denial rates of any racial group.10 A 2018 analysis found that Black households in San Francisco–Oakland could afford only 5% of available home listings, the lowest share of any major U.S. metropolitan area.11
The population of Black homeowners who must absorb Oakland’s stacked parcel taxes is both shrinking and concentrated in the city’s lowest-property-value neighborhoods—precisely the group least able to absorb the disproportionate burden.
Rising carrying costs force homeowners out, and the data offers evidence of the link between property-tax pressure and displacement in Oakland.
Oakland’s Black population has declined by 33% since 2000, even as it rose modestly at the national level.12 Nearly one-quarter (24%) of California’s Black residents now live outside the state’s major urban centers—up from 17% in 2000—largely due to housing affordability.13 Over 87% of Oakland’s residents of color live in neighborhoods that are either at risk of, actively undergoing, or have already undergone displacement or gentrification.14
Parcel tax increases are substantially passed through to renters
Studies have shown that property taxes, including parcel taxes, are substantially passed through to tenants. This effect is particularly relevant in Oakland, where approximately 58% of households rent.
A 2025 study using a comprehensive unit-level rental dataset from Berkeley—Oakland’s immediate neighbor and a nearly identical rental market—found that landlords pass through $0.50 to $0.89 of every $1 in building-level property tax increases to new tenants.15
Oakland’s rent-stabilization ordinance blunts some short-term pass-through, however, vacancy decontrol permits recapture through turnover and rent increases over time, and approaches full pass-through over five years.
Stacked across all of Oakland’s per-unit multi-family parcel taxes, a small-building tenant can absorb $250–$400 per year in pass-through parcel tax alone.
Because parcel taxes are per unit rather than scaled to value, tenants in smaller, older buildings—typical of lower-rent, historically redlined neighborhoods such as West Oakland and Fruitvale—absorb a higher per-dollar-of-rent tax burden than tenants in new luxury towers near downtown.
For example, Oakland’s Measure NN’s multi-family parcel tax is $132 per unit per year (which is itself an increase from $91 under the previous Measure Z). The tax is applied uniformly regardless of rent level or tenant income. A four-unit Oakland apartment building therefore carries $528 annually in Measure NN tax burden alone; whereas a 40-unit luxury complex carries $5,280 — a relatively smaller share of the property’s total rental income capacity.
Other considerations and counterpoints
Measure E’s proponents — and of Oakland’s high taxes in general — have cited various points which warrant acknowledgment in this context. A list of noteworthy points is provided below, without further rebuttal, for readers to review and consider:
Oakland’s parcel taxes are promised to fund basic services like schools, libraries, and public safety — governmental services that benefit lower-income families and families of color. Proponents of Measure E assert that without the new parcel tax, reductions to these basic services will be necessary.
Many cities, including Oakland assert that California’s Proposition 13, approved by voters in 1978, was a watershed event that decimated local tax revenues and resulted in service reductions — providing justification for local governments’ decades-long pivot to parcel taxes and other assessments to recover the lost revenue.
Some Measure E proponents characterize the flat-rate tax amount as modest relative to typical housing costs, a fraction of a home’s overall value, and note that exemptions exist for seniors and low-income households.
Proponents also note that the burden on rental housing is lower per unit, because multifamily parcels pay $131 per unit rather than $192 per single family home. Additionally, Oakland’s rent-stabilization ordinance inhibits landlords from immediately passing through costs to tenants of rent-controlled units.
Measure E’s supporters also note that oversight mechanisms will monitor how the tax monies are used, and some observers note that Oakland voters have routinely approved past parcel tax measures, indicating broad popular support.
A look ahead
In closing Part 4, we again acknowledge that taxes are necessary to provide the public services people need and deserve. That is a reasonable arrangement that reasonable people agree with, ourselves included.
The issue at hand is whether the city is responsibly and equitably managing the resources it takes from its citizens, and whether city leaders are acting in the best interests of the people who have entrusted them with those resources.
We believe that every Oakland resident — indeed, every person — deserves to have a safe, stable home with housing costs that do not exceed 30% of their income.
Unfortunately, most Oakland residents are heavily burdened by the high and increasing cost of housing in Oakland and the Bay Area region. Nearly half of Oakland households are burdened by spending over 30% of their income on housing, and over 20% are severely cost-burdened.16
Much has been said and written in this journal and in other outlets about the many financial challenges the city of Oakland faces. The city and its advocates have long argued that these challenges require the residents to give more through higher taxes. This series does not refute the fact that the city’s expenses consistently exceed the resources with which it has been entrusted.
However, the evidence suggests that the city’s newest proposed solution to that problem — a new flat-rate parcel tax — will have disproportionate impacts that appear to run counter to the city’s commitment to resolving the harms caused by discriminatory practices of the past.
Thank you for reading this series. Please consider donating to Oakland Report today, as we prepare the final installment. Your donation in any amount helps us to continue our nonprofit work.
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See these related articles:
The city of Oakland has broken its promises to voters in three of the last four parcel tax measures
Neditch, Nicole et al. “Balancing Oakland’s budget: Nine recommendations for closing the city’s structural deficit to move toward fiscal solvency and economic growth.” San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, May 2025, p. 17. https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/2025-05/SPUR_Oakland_Budget.pdf
ATTOM contributors. “Oakland, CA Real Estate & Property Data.” ATTOM website, accessed Apr. 20, 2026. https://propertynavigator.attomdata.com/data/us-real-estate/ca/alameda-county/oakland/
Rothstein, Richard. “The color of law: a forgotten history of how our government segregated America.” Liveright, 2017.
California Taxpayers Association. “The other property tax: an overview of parcel taxes in California.” CalTax, March 2013. https://arev.assembly.ca.gov/sites/arev.assembly.ca.gov/files/ParcelTaxPolicyBrief%20from%20CalTax.pdf
ED100 contributors. “Parcel taxes: only in California.” ED100 website, accessed Apr 20, 2026. https://ed100.org/lessons/parceltax
David, Carl et al. “Taxes and racial equity: an overview of state and local policy impacts.” Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, Mar. 31, 2021. https://itep.org/taxes-and-racial-equity/
Fields, Jordan et al. “How the property tax system harms Black homeowners and widens the racial wealth gap.” Brookings, Aug. 22, 2023. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-property-tax-system-harms-black-homeowners-and-widens-the-racial-wealth-gap/
Shepard, Tallulah. “Blueprint for resilience: lessons from Oakland’s Black neighborhoods.” Greenbelt Alliance, Feb. 27, 2025. https://www.greenbelt.org/blog/oakland-black-neighborhoods-resilience/
Schwarzer, Mitchell. “Hella town: Oakland’s history of development and disruption.” University of California Press, 2022.
Housing Policy Finance Center contributors. “Keys unlock dreams: Oakland.” Urban Institute, January 2024. https://keys.nationalfairhousing.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/KUDI-Oakland.pdf
Fernandez, Lisa. “Black households in San Francisco, Oakland have fewest home-buying options in U.S.: Zillow.” KTVU, Apr., 12, 2018. https://www.ktvu.com/news/black-households-in-san-francisco-oakland-have-fewest-home-buying-options-in-u-s-zillow
Hwang, Jackelyn et al. “Neighborhood change and residential instability in Oakland.” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, May 2021. https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/neighborhood-change-residential-instability-oakland.pdf
Bonner, Kacey and Barbra Ramos. “State of Black California report: persistent gaps for Black Californians would take over 248 years to close.” UCLA Black Policy Project, Apr. 11, 2024. https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/state-of-black-california-2024
Montojo, Nicole. “Understanding rising inequality and displacement in Oakland.” PBS SoCal, Sept. 13, 2017. https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/city-rising/understanding-rising-inequality-and-displacement-in-oakland
Baker, Sarah. “Property tax pass-through to renters: a quasi-experimental approach.” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadephia, December 2025. https://www.philadelphiafed.org/consumer-finance/consumer-credit/property-tax-pass-through-to-renters-a-quasi-experimental-approach
City of Oakland. “2023-2031 Housing Element update: Appendix B: housing needs assessment.” January 2023. https://www.oaklandca.gov/files/assets/city/v/1/planning-amp-building/documents/sp/gp/housing-element/appendix-b-housing-needs-assessment-1.12.23-clean.pdf
Why are only property owners taxed for measures that are supposed benefit population at large? I bet we’d see much less propositions of this sort passed if everyone had to chip-in
Important information and perspective.
Of course, don't wait for a response from the public employee unions driving the relentless tax increases you describe.
Instead.....crickets.
So much for their overriding ideological concern for poor and minority residents of Oakland.