The repeal of prop 13 is straightforward. Let property taxes rise more than inflation each year. It could be capped at 2x or 3x, etc. It would be slow enough to let people prepare, but fast enough to be painful.
Indeed. Catch-up rates could also be a function of how far out-of-whack the current property tax bill is.
This could even be part of a hybrid approach where owners have some protection against rapid changes, but bills slowly catch-up to their neighbors… restoring equal protection under the law regardless of date-of-purchase.
For example, the increase-cap could be "the larger of 1% [like Prop 13] or a rate that, compounded 20 years, would reach parity with peer properties". As long as your bill is only ~22% less than comparable properties, you're still on the Prop 13 1% plan. But when things really get out of whack, your rates go up slightly more... and you have very strong visibility into the next two decades' of rises, if you assume property values hold. (If you're paying half your comparable-property new neighbors, your bill would go up around 3.5%/year.)
No surprises, small annual changes, but (over time) far less of a giant tax-handout to the already-property-rich.
