There is no housing crisis in MoCo or most of the DMV for that matter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

See, this is where the free market takes over. If burger flippers, teachers, and barbers can't afford to live in the area then the supplies of those who do that labor will go down, leading to a premium in wages that will allow them to eventually afford housing. No one is entitled to live wherever they want. We do not need to upend our way of life because people don't like their personal choices. There is plenty of cheap housing stock in Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Western MD, etc. It's not my responsibility to provide you housing because you don't want to live there.

[Anonymous]

When teachers and firefighters and nurses cant afford to live closer to their place of work and raise their families in a safe neighborhood, its bad for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When teachers and firefighters and nurses cant afford to live closer to their place of work and raise their families in a safe neighborhood, its bad for everyone.

Yeah, it used to be that the city and surrounding jurisdictions paid a lot better so those folks would drive in from Frederick or Charles or Howard. But now those jurisdictions pay pretty comparably so those folks figure they might as well take an easier job closer to home. It’s one of the factors driving the shortage of cops and teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

The proposals to end single family zoning aren’t replacing those home with affordable housing. They are tearing down $800K SFH to build $1M duplexes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When teachers and firefighters and nurses cant afford to live closer to their place of work and raise their families in a safe neighborhood, its bad for everyone.

Yeah, it used to be that the city and surrounding jurisdictions paid a lot better so those folks would drive in from Frederick or Charles or Howard. But now those jurisdictions pay pretty comparably so those folks figure they might as well take an easier job closer to home. It’s one of the factors driving the shortage of cops and teachers.

In the case of police, the surrounding areas now pay more. Not sure about teachers.

[Anonymous]

As pp stated, its not just about “burger flippers”. To function, a healthy and effective society needs teachers, firefighters, EMTs, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, etc. These are not high paying jobs. These employees need somewhere to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

See, this is where the free market takes over. If burger flippers, teachers, and barbers can't afford to live in the area then the supplies of those who do that labor will go down, leading to a premium in wages that will allow them to eventually afford housing. No one is entitled to live wherever they want. We do not need to upend our way of life because people don't like their personal choices. There is plenty of cheap housing stock in Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Western MD, etc. It's not my responsibility to provide you housing because you don't want to live there.

The housing shortage is not about people feeling entitled to live wherever they want, it's about supply not keeping up with demand.

I am curious how this is upending your life, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

Ok sure it's tough to buy a sfh, but that's not what they're trying to change all of the codes to build. There will be even fewer sfh under these policies. Is there really a shortage of apartments?

There does seem to be a mismatch. People want smaller single family starter homes. They are knocking down the old small SFH homes to build big houses that take up the whole lot, and then also building mixed use luxury apartments. Lots being built, just not what young families want. I guess in theory the boomers can sell their old houses to move to those apartments — some do. I’ve seen lots of decent older homes in my neighborhood be knocked down for developers — the incentives are all wrong for people to be able to buy the older housing stock. Years ago there was an article on maybe WaPo about neighbors that bought a house on their street and rehabbed it so the developers would not overbuild it, and explaining the economics of why that doesn’t really work.

This. Massive ugly houses or tiny apartments. What people actually want are the existing right sized homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

Ok sure it's tough to buy a sfh, but that's not what they're trying to change all of the codes to build. There will be even fewer sfh under these policies. Is there really a shortage of apartments?

There does seem to be a mismatch. People want smaller single family starter homes. They are knocking down the old small SFH homes to build big houses that take up the whole lot, and then also building mixed use luxury apartments. Lots being built, just not what young families want. I guess in theory the boomers can sell their old houses to move to those apartments — some do. I’ve seen lots of decent older homes in my neighborhood be knocked down for developers — the incentives are all wrong for people to be able to buy the older housing stock. Years ago there was an article on maybe WaPo about neighbors that bought a house on their street and rehabbed it so the developers would not overbuild it, and explaining the economics of why that doesn’t really work.

This. Massive ugly houses or tiny apartments. What people actually want are the existing right sized homes.

So entitlement. They want homes even though apartments are available.

Thanks for confirming entitlement mentality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

Ok sure it's tough to buy a sfh, but that's not what they're trying to change all of the codes to build. There will be even fewer sfh under these policies. Is there really a shortage of apartments?

There does seem to be a mismatch. People want smaller single family starter homes. They are knocking down the old small SFH homes to build big houses that take up the whole lot, and then also building mixed use luxury apartments. Lots being built, just not what young families want. I guess in theory the boomers can sell their old houses to move to those apartments — some do. I’ve seen lots of decent older homes in my neighborhood be knocked down for developers — the incentives are all wrong for people to be able to buy the older housing stock. Years ago there was an article on maybe WaPo about neighbors that bought a house on their street and rehabbed it so the developers would not overbuild it, and explaining the economics of why that doesn’t really work.

This. Massive ugly houses or tiny apartments. What people actually want are the existing right sized homes.

So entitlement. They want homes even though apartments are available.

Thanks for confirming entitlement mentality.

Are you the poster who is complaining that this is upending your life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

The proposals to end single family zoning aren’t replacing those home with affordable housing. They are tearing down $800K SFH to build $1M duplexes.

Not quite. There is always an element of MPDUs or even VLIDUs in each new build. Basically they are destroying the few remaining vestiges of the middle class. It’s either multi million dollar homes or get on the government list for the reduced price dwellings. Very sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As pp stated, its not just about “burger flippers”. To function, a healthy and effective society needs teachers, firefighters, EMTs, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, etc. These are not high paying jobs. These employees need somewhere to live.

That would be awesome! That’s what they told us at community meetings. But instead they bring in random people with family members who commit both nuisance crime and serious crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

The proposals to end single family zoning aren’t replacing those home with affordable housing. They are tearing down $800K SFH to build $1M duplexes.

Not quite. There is always an element of MPDUs or even VLIDUs in each new build. Basically they are destroying the few remaining vestiges of the middle class. It’s either multi million dollar homes or get on the government list for the reduced price dwellings. Very sad.

This is a bit, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

The proposals to end single family zoning aren’t replacing those home with affordable housing. They are tearing down $800K SFH to build $1M duplexes.

This is just false. The proposals at issue most certainly at the state level and also at the county level tie the zoning to some amount of below market housing being built.
AND the more housing of any type there is the more affordable housing becomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its all a tube of toothpaste. You want low wage workers so you can get a burger for under $10? Well you either need to build enough cheap or subsidized housing for them, or deal with 270/495/most other roads being jammed up with drive-till-you-qualifiers coming to make your sandwich.

See, this is where the free market takes over. If burger flippers, teachers, and barbers can't afford to live in the area then the supplies of those who do that labor will go down, leading to a premium in wages that will allow them to eventually afford housing. No one is entitled to live wherever they want. We do not need to upend our way of life because people don't like their personal choices. There is plenty of cheap housing stock in Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Western MD, etc. It's not my responsibility to provide you housing because you don't want to live there.

Does the free market also makes sure there is a steady stream of people from poor countries coming in to work at those wages, under the table if necessary? Because that's a big part of what's going on. Wages would rise if you couldn't just keep bringing in someone else to do it for less.