While the California Apartment Association helped prevent any split roll legislation from becoming law this year, threats to Proposition 13 are manifesting themselves beyond the Capitol.

Groups including ReFund LA Coalition and California Calls, both with strong union ties, are working to undermine Prop. 13, which limits property tax increases by basing them on the initial assessed value.

A split roll would allow counties to reassess rental and commercial property annually based on current market value, potentially costing California rental housing providers billions of dollars in new taxes. In 2009, CAA created Rental Housing Against Higher Taxes to battle split roll.

Last week, the California Taxpayers Association warned members via email of a group called California Calls and its efforts to misinform Californians about the effects of Prop. 13. The association warned that California Calls could be setting the stage for a split roll measure on next year’s ballot.

“CalTax continues to remain on high alert regarding split roll efforts,” the e-mail alert says. “This new organization’s grassroots push is concerning, as the effort continues momentum by the spending lobby to push for a split roll.”

CAA joins CalTax in staying vigilant against split roll efforts, both inside and outside Sacramento.

In another effort taking aim at Prop. 13, a group called the ReFund LA Coalition launched a campaign last week against Westfield Group, an Austraila-based company that owns malls throughout the world, including one in Century City, the L.A. Times reported.

The coalition wants Westfield and companies like it to pay higher property taxes, contrary to safeguards afforded under Prop. 13.

The California Taxpayers Association told the L.A. Times that attack on Westfield represents another round in a long fight over the proposition.

“The government employees have been advocating for a split roll property tax system since 1978,” David Kline, a spokesman for the California Taxpayers Association, said in the article. “The voters and property owners of all kinds have rejected the idea time and time again because it’s just a bad system.”

Rental property owners, however, can rest assured that split roll legislation will stay off the governor’s desk during the current session, which ends in six weeks.

CAA helped prevent AB 188 by Tom Ammiano from moving out of committee this year. The bill seeks to impose a form of split roll by triggering more frequent reassessments of property. The bill defines change in ownership so that a reassessment of property could occur when, cumulatively, 100 percent of the ownership interest transfers in a rolling three-year period.