California’s commercial real estate industry is preparing for the home stretch of an election campaign that could have major consequences for the state’s property owners and businesses.

Thus far, it is shaping up to be a close call, at least for one of the industry’s two big items.

Proposition 15, which would raise taxes on commercial and industrial property by taxing based on current market value, was favored by 51% of voters in the latest poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, conducted between early and mid-September and including 1,700 California residents.

Supporters pitch the hike in revenues as mostly falling on the state’s biggest property owners, with 90% of the tax affecting the top 10% most valuable properties. Opponents say those costs will be passed on to small businesses and consumers, worsening the state’s recession.

“This is still a tax increase on small business, and I know that we want to say it’s not that and that it’s all big corporations and big business, but a lot of them lease to small-business owners and they have triple-net leases,” California Retailers Association President and CEO Rachel Michelin said.

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