AUSTIN, Texas — A referendum in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday to raise taxes for city services partly to address homelessness has set off a surprising backlash in the deep blue city.

Opponents fear sharply increasing property taxes will add to a crisis of affordability and have suggested the City Council is beholden to developers.

Some, particularly among Austin’s vocal conservatives, have accused local homeless service nonprofits — which support the measure — of grifting from taxpayers as part of a “homeless-industrial complex.”

But even some on the left worry the city is asking voters to price themselves out of Austin.

“We’re just one step from becoming homeless” ourselves, said Susana Almanza, the director of PODER, a social and environmental justice nonprofit based in East Austin. “And so we feel like this additional increase will really hurt.”

Supporters have been bracing for defeat on Election Day.

“People are not happy campers,” said José Vela III, known as Chito, a member of the Austin City Council, which voted 10-1 to approve the tax rate increase, then sent it to the voters. A referendum is required under Texas law for property tax hikes that would raise revenue more than 3.5%.

“It’s a tough time to have a civic-minded election about municipal services,” Vela added. “If anything takes us down, it’s going to be this ‘to hell with them all’ approach to government.”

The 2019 law mandating such votes was part of an ongoing push to rein in the state’s Democratic cities. Tuesday’s tax rate referendum in Austin appeared to be the first by a large Texas city under the law, Vela said.

The proposed tax increase, known as Proposition Q, has stirred a debate over the many complaints that Austin residents have had about their rapidly changing city, where high-rise buildings now dominate the skyline of what was once a quirky college town.

For some, the tax hike proposal is a slap in the face from city leaders who have lost the trust of voters after years of increasing spending — epitomized by the creation of a new city logo, developed at a cost of more than $1 million. For others, it is a chance to reject the pro-growth ethos associated with the Austin area’s new wealthy technology elite, which includes residents like Elon Musk.

“The sort of extreme YIMBY-ism that Austin’s been experiencing is failing, and the pushback against Prop Q is, in effect, a pushback against those failed policies,” said Robin Rather, a proposition opponent who used the acronym for “yes, in my backyard,” to describe policies that support growth and housing development.

“Everybody loves Austin, but only some people can afford to stay here,” said Rather, a lifelong Democrat, and the daughter of former CBS News anchor Dan Rather.