If MoCo need housing, why keep agricultural reserve?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ag Preserve is here to stay. Modifying it is a non-starter. The East Coast has been razed for sprawl and dumb/no urban planning. The Virginia side is sprawl with winding suburban roads as far as Google maps can see. Here Montgomery County did something smart:set aside a green lung of low(er) intensity land-use, and focus on smart development on the already urbanized areas. This is akin to Colorado protecting its mountains from development.

Much higher order of priority is upzoning close-in suburbs like Bethesda that are less than an hour to downtown DC. No need to create a “drive till you qualify” real estate Ponzi scheme situation with the poorer workers driving 2+ hours to work

Sure, upzoning is way more convenient because it doesn’t involve any planning or foresight at all. Just throw things at the wall and see what sticks no matter the mess it makes in the process.

It's also more convenient to upzone in close-in suburbs than it is to develop farmland 45 minutes away from D.C. because that way the new housing is closer to where more people live.

[Anonymous]

Look at a satellite image of Moco versus Fairfax/Loudon Counties. It is quite a reveal at two very divergent planning strategies.

NoVa has unending sprawl with hundreds of square miles of cul-de-sac single family and townhouse developments with the corresponding ubquitious strip malls. Add to it the server farms that provide a completely dead streetscape and minimal employment ( a few engineers on staff and some security) once constructed and operational. Density along 267 and the attempt and infilling at Reston and Herndon.

Across the river, there is the dense Rockville Pike Corridor, the relatively dense Rout 29 Corridor, and development centered around Kensington and Wheaton and the metro stations. The almost entire rest of the county is the same McMansion farms and low density/low intensity development along with the Ag reserve.

You can see very plainly that other than along the river, most of NVa is hardscaped and the corresponding environmental degradation is stark.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0321669,-77.2494257,24055m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu

[Anonymous]

There is plenty of land not being used well in the rest of MoCo, just come over to the eastern side.

One reason I like MoCo is that it hasn't been totally built out and there are trees as well as farms.

[Anonymous]

The Ag Reserve is one my favorite parts of living here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because MoCo politicians are laregly NIMBYs. They oppose a second Potomac crossing, as the path would enter the Ag Reserve on a tiny corner for 1-2 miles. Of course, the second Potomac crossing would save drivers a huge amount of time and less time with polluting cars on the road but...

There is a second Potomac crossing. It's at Point of Rocks.

You don't actually know how much of the Ag Reserve would be affected by a new highway leading to a new bridge between the American Legion bridge and the Point of Rocks bridge, because there is no plan for this new highway and no planned route. Also, it would induce a huge amount of driving and more time with more polluting cars on the road but...

Part of it is already done. I-370 on the MD side, and then VA-28 on the VA side. VA upgraded 28 to be interstate-quality a few years ago, partly for this reason. Drawaing a straight line across (yes I realize that's not how highways work), it clips the corne of the Ag Reserve over by Seneca. I think most likely they would upgrade MD-28 and MD-112 as that combination gets you to about 2 miles from the river.

But.. it's a pipe dream and will never happen, I know.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like some people want to pave paradise to put up a parking lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because we need green space for our health and wellbeing.

Great, I want greenspace in my Bethesda neighborhood but the county seems to think density is the solution!

Build where land is really cheap and that solves many problems

[Anonymous]

So we don't have to visit trees in tree museums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because we need green space for our health and wellbeing.

Great, I want greenspace in my Bethesda neighborhood but the county seems to think density is the solution!

Build where land is really cheap and that solves many problems

No, it solves a few problems and creates many problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because we need green space for our health and wellbeing.

Great, I want greenspace in my Bethesda neighborhood but the county seems to think density is the solution!

Build where land is really cheap and that solves many problems

Parks proposed more greenspace along Little Falls Parkway but the residents were against it.

[Anonymous]

I personally think food shortages are going to be an issue in our lifetime or our children’s. Currently a ridiculous amount of our food comes from California .. with climate change, fires and droughts, how low can that continue? And the food coming from other countries? How long will that continue as they face shortages and political instability? We need more food grown in lots of different places and ideally closer to home than what we currently have. I don’t think the MoCo Ag preserve is being super well utilized at the moment but at least it is there if we need to repurpose it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because we need green space for our health and wellbeing.

Great, I want greenspace in my Bethesda neighborhood but the county seems to think density is the solution!

Build where land is really cheap and that solves many problems

Parks proposed more greenspace along Little Falls Parkway but the residents were against it.

We have plenty of greenspace. Most of 20816 is parkland as it is. We don't need more but we also don't need density. No one has a right to live in certain neighborhoods..just as I don't! If i couldn't afford my home, I would live somewhere further out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because we need green space for our health and wellbeing.

Great, I want greenspace in my Bethesda neighborhood but the county seems to think density is the solution!

Build where land is really cheap and that solves many problems

Parks proposed more greenspace along Little Falls Parkway but the residents were against it.

We have plenty of greenspace. Most of 20816 is parkland as it is. We don't need more but we also don't need density. No one has a right to live in certain neighborhoods..just as I don't! If i couldn't afford my home, I would live somewhere further out.

But the government does have the authority to establish what kind of housing a property owner is legally allowed to build on the property owner's property, which is what this is about.

[Anonymous]

Considering the county has a hard time finding new space for schools, I think the Ag reserve and other green spaces should be on the table for new school construction. MoCo cant on one hand keep green lighting housing projects then claim there is no land to build new school to absorb the new students. They need to find a way to make it happen and it might involve some hard choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Considering the county has a hard time finding new space for schools, I think the Ag reserve and other green spaces should be on the table for new school construction. MoCo cant on one hand keep green lighting housing projects then claim there is no land to build new school to absorb the new students. They need to find a way to make it happen and it might involve some hard choices.

Hard disagree. Our agricultural lands should be protected forever. You build a school then you have a parking lot. You have roads leading up to it and housing be gets built up around it. This is not a good idea.