Remember, the whole problem here is that your property is now worth more than you paid for it. That "coercive state action" will leave you with a substantial p

Remember, the whole problem here is that your property is now worth more than you paid for it. That "coercive state action" will leave you with a substantial pile of cash, which the income tax laws will even let you keep. Anyway -- you've never heard of a home equity loan? If you really want to hang on to the property, take out a loan, pay the property taxes with part of it, and use the rest to make the payments. Zero cash flow impact. Or, sell a partial interest in the property to a speculator. There are solutions. And as 'raldi points out, Prop. 13 could have been written so the accumulated difference between tax assessed and tax paid would have been collected at the time of sale. That would have addressed the owner's cash flow problem without requiring financing, without cheating localities of taxes they need to provide services -- not least, education -- and (getting back to the point of the article) without disincentivizing residential development vs. commercial.