February President's Message
BOMA San Diego's president, Amber Molina, covers the February luncheon and recent government affairs news.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
by: Amber Molina

Section: News




With the year 2020 being such a landmark year and the start of a new decade, it’s only fitting that we arm our membership with insight and explore what the future of commercial real estate has in store for us. With ever-evolving market trends, economic factors and local regulatory issues at the forefront, you can count on BOMA San Diego to help put these impacts into perspective for you.

Our sold-out February membership meeting achieved just that, focusing on the 2020 Economic Outlook for commercial real estate. Our panel of local experts brought valuable market knowledge to the conversation and provided context on the economic data as it relates to real estate. In early February, your local BOMA San Diego executive leadership team was in Washington, D.C. attending the BOMA International Winter Business Meeting, working on behalf of the San Diego commercial real estate industry. We met with our members of Congress to build relationships, help inform them about our industry and advocate for energy efficiency tax incentives, reasonable tax reform to bring leasehold depreciation from 39 years down to 10 years and to thank our lawmakers for some commercial real estate victories.

Thanks to the efforts and influence of BOMA, we helped enable the passage of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act which provides a federal backstop for insurance coverage for acts of terrorism and provides stability in the insurance market for commercial property. Another long-standing priority for BOMA was re-enacting the commercial building energy efficiency tax deduction, which finally came to fruition with an extension through 2021. And in another legislative win, BOMA California was able to secure funds from BOMA International’s industry defense fund to help fight the effort against the split roll tax measure which will be on our ballots in November.

This measure will seek to split the roll between residential and commercial property and re-assess commercial and industrial property to current market value every three years. Not only will this be an incredible burden on the tenants and ownerships of our buildings, but this will also likely mean that the costs of goods and services will rise as businesses and retailers will look for ways to recapture this property tax hike.

Therefore, effecting ALL Californians. As you can imagine, this will be an incredible impact on our industry and will be our biggest legislative battle of the year. So please stay tuned for further education and fundraising efforts from BOMA San Diego on this legislative battle. To learn more about the legislative impacts on our industry, all members are welcome to join us at our Government's Affairs Committee meetings. We look forward to being your resource and strategic business partner in 2020 and beyond.