4/13/26: This story has been updated to clarify the relationship between the Astoria Housing Alliance and the Astoria Housing Initiative.
A group looking to address housing shortages in Astoria hopes to get a measure on the November ballot that would tax vacant houses.
The group behind the Astoria Housing Initiative announced this week that it has received approval to seek signatures for an “empty homes” tax meant to apply to homes that are intentionally left vacant and are not used as housing for the majority of the year.
The Astoria Housing Alliance, which is organizing the initiative, estimates more than 300 houses in Astoria could fit that criteria and that a tax on them could generate nearly $1 million in the first year, and more the following years.
The tax revenue would go to a community housing fund to support affordable and workforce housing in Astoria.
Andrew Kipp, a software engineer, is one of the chief petitioners behind the proposal and the founder of the Astoria Housing Alliance. He has been a vocal participant in housing-related debates at Astoria City Council meetings and was part of an appeals process involving a historic building in Astoria where the owners had shifted from apartments to vacation rentals.
Kipp said the proposed empty homes tax measure is modeled after existing policies in other West Coast cities.
“I think about it like approaching the problem from two angles,” he said. “The empty homes tax creates an incentive for people to rent them out or put them back into the housing market. If people choose not to do that, the revenue from the tax goes into a dedicated fund that allow the city to invest in creating more housing and support the housing for people who live here and work here full time.”
The Astoria Housing Initiative needs to collect just over 1,000 signatures from registered voters in Astoria in order to get the measure on the ballot in a future election.
The group has two years to get the signatures, but Kipp says they have a more ambitious timeline in mind: They hope to gather enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot in this year’s November general election.