all these affordable housing do gooders are doing the billionaires' work

[Anonymous]

I can't stand these YIMBY do gooder twerps. They want to raze all SFHs to build dense crap. They love standing on their moral pedestals when they're too stupid to realize they're destroying the middle class and doing the bidding of the billionaires for free. Owning a home is pretty much the ONLY wealth vehicle the middle class has left. But the do gooders want to raze your homes and build giant apartment complexes next to them. Absolutely no one wants to live next to that junk. The middle class will flee, and guess what, developers come in taking all the homes and building a whole bunch of rental crap.

In their infinite wisdom, the YIMBYs and affordable housing idiots are sweeping the last leg of wealth out that is left for the middle class. They ate going to turn the entire counry into permarenters for life. And over time the middle class will be far worse off, because no one will be able to own anything, then they'll still jack up your rents on you in the end. The biggest thing elitists want to control now is land and property ownership. And all these clownshow housing morons are obtaining it for them by ruining your neighborhoods with their amazingly stupid zoning plans.

[Anonymous]

+100

You'll own nothing, and you'll love it!

[Anonymous]

Not sure if they’re doing the bidding of billionaires but they are definitely doing the bidding of developers and many of the policies they push only serve to increase developer profits and don’t actually make housing more affordable.

The more disturbing part to me is that it’s like a cult. There is no room for any dissent. They have an entire set of made up terminology and ideas and you have to follow those or you are out of the cult.

[Anonymous]

I think they just push the most extreme version of their agenda and occasionally, they get some of what the want.

Yes the rich get richer, but what else is new?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand these YIMBY do gooder twerps. They want to raze all SFHs to build dense crap. They love standing on their moral pedestals when they're too stupid to realize they're destroying the middle class and doing the bidding of the billionaires for free. Owning a home is pretty much the ONLY wealth vehicle the middle class has left. But the do gooders want to raze your homes and build giant apartment complexes next to them. Absolutely no one wants to live next to that junk. The middle class will flee, and guess what, developers come in taking all the homes and building a whole bunch of rental crap.

In their infinite wisdom, the YIMBYs and affordable housing idiots are sweeping the last leg of wealth out that is left for the middle class. They ate going to turn the entire counry into permarenters for life. And over time the middle class will be far worse off, because no one will be able to own anything, then they'll still jack up your rents on you in the end. The biggest thing elitists want to control now is land and property ownership. And all these clownshow housing morons are obtaining it for them by ruining your neighborhoods with their amazingly stupid zoning plans.

Not sure if this is bait, but no elected officials seriously want to raze all SFHs in Montgomery County. The AHSI (which I assume you’re referring to) only applies to specific areas within the county near transit corridors. There’s a wealth of literature showing that increasing supply (building more housing) brings down prices. NIMBYs on the council are promoting their exclusionary policies in the name of alleviating economic inequality, and I am not falling for it, nor are many people on the council and perhaps our next executive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand these YIMBY do gooder twerps. They want to raze all SFHs to build dense crap. They love standing on their moral pedestals when they're too stupid to realize they're destroying the middle class and doing the bidding of the billionaires for free. Owning a home is pretty much the ONLY wealth vehicle the middle class has left. But the do gooders want to raze your homes and build giant apartment complexes next to them. Absolutely no one wants to live next to that junk. The middle class will flee, and guess what, developers come in taking all the homes and building a whole bunch of rental crap.

In their infinite wisdom, the YIMBYs and affordable housing idiots are sweeping the last leg of wealth out that is left for the middle class. They ate going to turn the entire counry into permarenters for life. And over time the middle class will be far worse off, because no one will be able to own anything, then they'll still jack up your rents on you in the end. The biggest thing elitists want to control now is land and property ownership. And all these clownshow housing morons are obtaining it for them by ruining your neighborhoods with their amazingly stupid zoning plans.

Not sure if this is bait, but no elected officials seriously want to raze all SFHs in Montgomery County. The AHSI (which I assume you’re referring to) only applies to specific areas within the county near transit corridors. There’s a wealth of literature showing that increasing supply (building more housing) brings down prices. NIMBYs on the council are promoting their exclusionary policies in the name of alleviating economic inequality, and I am not falling for it, nor are many people on the council and perhaps our next executive.

+1. Plus, not all YIMBYs on the council are the same (some take developer $, and some do not — see also rent stabilization).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand these YIMBY do gooder twerps. They want to raze all SFHs to build dense crap. They love standing on their moral pedestals when they're too stupid to realize they're destroying the middle class and doing the bidding of the billionaires for free. Owning a home is pretty much the ONLY wealth vehicle the middle class has left. But the do gooders want to raze your homes and build giant apartment complexes next to them. Absolutely no one wants to live next to that junk. The middle class will flee, and guess what, developers come in taking all the homes and building a whole bunch of rental crap.

In their infinite wisdom, the YIMBYs and affordable housing idiots are sweeping the last leg of wealth out that is left for the middle class. They ate going to turn the entire counry into permarenters for life. And over time the middle class will be far worse off, because no one will be able to own anything, then they'll still jack up your rents on you in the end. The biggest thing elitists want to control now is land and property ownership. And all these clownshow housing morons are obtaining it for them by ruining your neighborhoods with their amazingly stupid zoning plans.

Not sure if this is bait, but no elected officials seriously want to raze all SFHs in Montgomery County. The AHSI (which I assume you’re referring to) only applies to specific areas within the county near transit corridors. There’s a wealth of literature showing that increasing supply (building more housing) brings down prices. NIMBYs on the council are promoting their exclusionary policies in the name of alleviating economic inequality, and I am not falling for it, nor are many people on the council and perhaps our next executive.

Friedson’s original version of the AHSI was far more expansive and would have eliminated single family zoning everywhere except Potomac and the agricultural area. When he realized it was unpopular, he tried to bait other executive candidates into joining him. Friedson probably had the votes to end single family zoning, but he knew he couldn’t be the only executive candidate to vote for it and still have a chance at winning.

Your supply story is more complicated. The only places where builders added enough supply to drive down prices are places that had much higher rent and price increases than we did (think 15 percent in a year). Our rental market is in balance over the long term (2.1 percent annual rent growth over decades, with rents dropping slightly in the recent period). Our sales market is constrained, but the YIMBYs here haven’t done anything to help that market along. In fact, they’ve consistently advocated shifting tax burden from landlords to homeowners.

On top of that, the YIMBYs have consistently misidentified land use rules and taxes as the primary supply constraints. The primary supply constraint here is demand.

[Anonymous]

I will also point out how myopic this group is: they only want to build more apartments, with no regard to infrastructure like traffic, schools, libraries, police and fire stations, parks to play in for all the kids who inevitably are going to end up living in those apartments. Any anyone who disagrees with them, or brings up any other angles (including schools), is immediately labeled a racist/bigot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will also point out how myopic this group is: they only want to build more apartments, with no regard to infrastructure like traffic, schools, libraries, police and fire stations, parks to play in for all the kids who inevitably are going to end up living in those apartments. Any anyone who disagrees with them, or brings up any other angles (including schools), is immediately labeled a racist/bigot

The schools argument is generally overstated because enrollment is actively declining across the county, precipitating an enrollment crisis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will also point out how myopic this group is: they only want to build more apartments, with no regard to infrastructure like traffic, schools, libraries, police and fire stations, parks to play in for all the kids who inevitably are going to end up living in those apartments. Any anyone who disagrees with them, or brings up any other angles (including schools), is immediately labeled a racist/bigot

The schools argument is generally overstated because enrollment is actively declining across the county, precipitating an enrollment crisis.

Sort of. For a long time the system was over capacity and the YIMBYs didn’t care about it then either. Even now, there isn’t enough school capacity close to the places people want to live. Compact growth was a big paradigm shift so of course infrastructure needs were going to change. The YIMBYs just waived that away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand these YIMBY do gooder twerps. They want to raze all SFHs to build dense crap. They love standing on their moral pedestals when they're too stupid to realize they're destroying the middle class and doing the bidding of the billionaires for free. Owning a home is pretty much the ONLY wealth vehicle the middle class has left. But the do gooders want to raze your homes and build giant apartment complexes next to them. Absolutely no one wants to live next to that junk. The middle class will flee, and guess what, developers come in taking all the homes and building a whole bunch of rental crap.

In their infinite wisdom, the YIMBYs and affordable housing idiots are sweeping the last leg of wealth out that is left for the middle class. They ate going to turn the entire counry into permarenters for life. And over time the middle class will be far worse off, because no one will be able to own anything, then they'll still jack up your rents on you in the end. The biggest thing elitists want to control now is land and property ownership. And all these clownshow housing morons are obtaining it for them by ruining your neighborhoods with their amazingly stupid zoning plans.

Not sure if this is bait, but no elected officials seriously want to raze all SFHs in Montgomery County. The AHSI (which I assume you’re referring to) only applies to specific areas within the county near transit corridors. There’s a wealth of literature showing that increasing supply (building more housing) brings down prices. NIMBYs on the council are promoting their exclusionary policies in the name of alleviating economic inequality, and I am not falling for it, nor are many people on the council and perhaps our next executive.

Friedson’s original version of the AHSI was far more expansive and would have eliminated single family zoning everywhere except Potomac and the agricultural area. When he realized it was unpopular, he tried to bait other executive candidates into joining him. Friedson probably had the votes to end single family zoning, but he knew he couldn’t be the only executive candidate to vote for it and still have a chance at winning.

Your supply story is more complicated. The only places where builders added enough supply to drive down prices are places that had much higher rent and price increases than we did (think 15 percent in a year). Our rental market is in balance over the long term (2.1 percent annual rent growth over decades, with rents dropping slightly in the recent period). Our sales market is constrained, but the YIMBYs here haven’t done anything to help that market along. In fact, they’ve consistently advocated shifting tax burden from landlords to homeowners.

On top of that, the YIMBYs have consistently misidentified land use rules and taxes as the primary supply constraints. The primary supply constraint here is demand.

Thank you for this nuanced analysis. I’m not sure I agree that all YIMBYs are a hive mind. To my knowledge, many of them are also focused on making buying homes more affordable and not merely on renting. I think we should defer to policy experts on how to do that, and one key way appears to be by building more housing for the missing middle along transit corridors. You seem to be genuinely engaging with the issue in good faith, but I’m concerned that many progressive NIMBY policymakers are not — they talk a big game about housing affordability, but then vote against many proposals put in front of them to build more housing/make buying a home more affordable. If they are in fact opposed for pragmatic/implementation-based reasons and not for politically expedient ones, I’d like to see them put forward their own proposals instead of complaining about and voting against everything in front of them all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will also point out how myopic this group is: they only want to build more apartments, with no regard to infrastructure like traffic, schools, libraries, police and fire stations, parks to play in for all the kids who inevitably are going to end up living in those apartments. Any anyone who disagrees with them, or brings up any other angles (including schools), is immediately labeled a racist/bigot

As I have mentioned elsewhere, these dense complexes underpay property taxes. That's what makes them so lucrative to the builders/owners. That just pushes more and more of the infrastructure burden onto the SFHs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will also point out how myopic this group is: they only want to build more apartments, with no regard to infrastructure like traffic, schools, libraries, police and fire stations, parks to play in for all the kids who inevitably are going to end up living in those apartments. Any anyone who disagrees with them, or brings up any other angles (including schools), is immediately labeled a racist/bigot

The schools argument is generally overstated because enrollment is actively declining across the county, precipitating an enrollment crisis.

Sort of. For a long time the system was over capacity and the YIMBYs didn’t care about it then either. Even now, there isn’t enough school capacity close to the places people want to live. Compact growth was a big paradigm shift so of course infrastructure needs were going to change. The YIMBYs just waived that away.

Hmm, interesting. School capacity seems to be a larger issue I’d like to see strong leadership from the superintendent and school board on. Building more housing near transit seems like a useful way of alleviating some of those concerns. As more people move into the county, we’ll need to evaluate infrastructure needs regardless, but it should be easier to build on what’s already there (and will allow us to expand our tax base, which is good!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand these YIMBY do gooder twerps. They want to raze all SFHs to build dense crap. They love standing on their moral pedestals when they're too stupid to realize they're destroying the middle class and doing the bidding of the billionaires for free. Owning a home is pretty much the ONLY wealth vehicle the middle class has left. But the do gooders want to raze your homes and build giant apartment complexes next to them. Absolutely no one wants to live next to that junk. The middle class will flee, and guess what, developers come in taking all the homes and building a whole bunch of rental crap.

In their infinite wisdom, the YIMBYs and affordable housing idiots are sweeping the last leg of wealth out that is left for the middle class. They ate going to turn the entire counry into permarenters for life. And over time the middle class will be far worse off, because no one will be able to own anything, then they'll still jack up your rents on you in the end. The biggest thing elitists want to control now is land and property ownership. And all these clownshow housing morons are obtaining it for them by ruining your neighborhoods with their amazingly stupid zoning plans.

People keep saying that -- eliminating all SFHs. But that's not true, and it's not how things will go in practice. Nobody is bulldozing your house down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't stand these YIMBY do gooder twerps. They want to raze all SFHs to build dense crap. They love standing on their moral pedestals when they're too stupid to realize they're destroying the middle class and doing the bidding of the billionaires for free. Owning a home is pretty much the ONLY wealth vehicle the middle class has left. But the do gooders want to raze your homes and build giant apartment complexes next to them. Absolutely no one wants to live next to that junk. The middle class will flee, and guess what, developers come in taking all the homes and building a whole bunch of rental crap.

In their infinite wisdom, the YIMBYs and affordable housing idiots are sweeping the last leg of wealth out that is left for the middle class. They ate going to turn the entire counry into permarenters for life. And over time the middle class will be far worse off, because no one will be able to own anything, then they'll still jack up your rents on you in the end. The biggest thing elitists want to control now is land and property ownership. And all these clownshow housing morons are obtaining it for them by ruining your neighborhoods with their amazingly stupid zoning plans.

People keep saying that -- eliminating all SFHs. But that's not true, and it's not how things will go in practice. Nobody is bulldozing your house down.

+100000