In the Bay Area, the charter is ordinary.
Twenty-five Bay Area cities, in every one of the nine counties, govern under their own charter. Benicia still doesn't.
A charter is home rule: the power to set local rules the state otherwise dictates. For most of these cities, the headline power is a real property transfer tax on home and building sales. Benicia already collects that tax. What it cannot do, as a general law city, is set its own rate.
25
Bay Area charter cities, from Santa Rosa to Gilroy
9 of 9
Bay Area counties have at least one
$0.55
per $1,000: the cap Benicia is stuck at as a general law city
What a charter unlocks: the transfer tax gap
Top city transfer tax rate on a property sale, per $1,000 of value. Benicia's ceiling is fixed by state law; a charter would let its voters decide.
At its top tier, San Francisco's city rate is roughly 109× the city rate Benicia is allowed to charge. Every figure here is the city's own rate. Buyers and sellers also pay the county's $1.10 per $1,000, which does not change from city to city.
THE NINE-COUNTY PICTURE
Charter cities ring the whole bay.
Every dot is a city that already governs under a charter. They line the shoreline from the North Bay down through Silicon Valley. The full list, with every rate, is below the map.
Benicia: general law, not yet chartered
All 25, county by county
Each city's top transfer tax rate, shown per $1,000 of sale price so the columns compare directly. A rate of $15.00 per $1,000 is the same as 1.5 percent. ● marks a city that adopted its charter specifically to enact a transfer tax.
Oakland
Four tiers; most homes pay $15.00
$10–$25
San Jose
$3.30 base, then tiers above $2.3M
$3.30–$15
Mountain View
$15 over $6M sales
$3.30 / $15
Santa Clara
No city rate set
—
Sunnyvale
No city rate set
—
Richmond
Four graduated tiers
$7–$30
San Ramon
No city rate set
—
San Mateo
$5 base; $15 at $10M and above
$5–$15
Redwood City
No city rate set
—
San Francisco
Tiered, top in the region
$5–$60
THE SAME REASON BENICIA IS ASKING
Two neighbors chartered for this one thing.
Emeryville, 2014Adopted a charter limited to municipal revenue in order to enable a transfer tax, then passed the tax as a separate measure on the same ballot. Both won. That is the structure Benicia is using.
El Cerrito, 2018Put the charter and a $12 per $1,000 tax to voters as a single question, and it passed. The most recent general law city in the region to convert for this reason.
What the voting record shows
Across the region, the design of the tax has mattered far more than the word "charter."
PASSESMeasures whose new rates start on high-value sales have generally won, most in the high 50s to low 70s. Mountain View, San Mateo, Berkeley, Oakland. San Jose's Measure E, the closest cousin to Measure Z, passed at about 53 percent.
FAILSMeasures reaching ordinary home sales have generally lost: Union City in 2018 and Belvedere in 2022, both charter and tax in one question. St. Helena's separate charter and tax measures both failed in 2024, as did Benicia's own tax at 42 percent. Piedmont, already a charter city, was refused a rate increase from $13 to $17.50 in 2020.
BENICIA'S TURN · NOVEMBER 2026
Second attempt, built on the record.
In 2024, Benicia's charter (Measure G, 46.4 percent) and transfer tax (Measure H, 41.8 percent) both fell short. The 2026 package, a one-page charter (Measure Y) paired with a transfer tax (Measure Z), is written to the pattern that wins: existing homes under $2 million exempt, with new construction and commercial sales carrying the load.
Placement vote: July 21, 2026. In August, a Solano County Superior Court judge reviewed a challenge to the ballot wording for Y and Z and denied it. The plan in full is at beniciasfuture.org/plan.
$141,720
Benicia's share of the county documentary transfer tax, FY22–23, at the general law cap
$400K
City-projected annual revenue under Measure Z by 2035, rising above $1.6 million by 2045
Sources: League of California Cities charter list; CaliforniaCityFinance transfer tax table, effective December 2025; Legislative Analyst's Office; CA Secretary of State and county election records; Ballotpedia. City rates only; the county rate of $1.10 per $1,000 applies everywhere. Compiled August 2026.
beniciasfuture.org