Why do they allow all the tear downs in Bethesda?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We live in one of those tear-downs, and were in competition with a builder who wanted to raze it down and build a McMansion.

However nobody cares about that, OP, compared to the scandalous overbuilding in downtown Bethesda.

For years, MCPS has ignored parents who kept warning that they should count the families with school-aged children living in high-rises, to correctly predict future demographics and school growth. MCPS did nothing, and current predictions for school population growth do not take these buildings into account. Result: the Bethesda Elementary school max capacity is 500 (counting recent addition) and the current number of students is nearly 700. We have portables, and children are obliged to go out in all weather to the main building to go to the bathroom. Portables are hot in summer and cold in winter and do not have the same security as the main building. Core spaces such as the cafeteria and gym are too small, leading to Kindergartners having lunch at 10:30am because mealtimes must be staggered. As a result of all these things, quality of instruction has suffered.

The county council is in the developers' pockets and has lied to the community about finding ways to slow construction of tall buildings while waiting to implement school solutions. Nothing short of a new elementary school would solve the problems here, but there are school issues up and down the county, and we are not a priority. Somerset and Westbrook have made a deal with shuttle some Somerset students to Westbrook. Boundary changes are perhaps in the works, which is a big deal for parents, who buy expensive housing for certain school districts.

The school field is full of dog poo because there are more dog owners than ever before and Bethesda does not have a dog field.

Traffic is a nightmare.

I could go on.

But McMansions, however ugly they are - and I agree with you on that point! - are not really in the top 10 problems.

Huh? There's no deal to shuttle Somerset students to Westbrook. There is a placeholder in the capital budget whereby a solution to the Somerset overcrowding problem should be resolved sort of maybe in the next 6 years. I do agree with your point that McMansions, while being obnoxious when built on a 5000 square foot lot, are less important than the broader overcrowding issues.

[Anonymous]

Bethesda has multiple large projects going on Marriott, Purple line and three large mixed use buildings going up the traffic will increase.

Lots of families do live in those tall buildings. Topaz house which is a 500 unit older rental on East West highway near metro lobby is like a playground with kids waiting various school buses and I see school busses there all the time.

Bethesda also doing a lot of cull de sacs, dead end streets, no right turns, no left turns, bumps in Road which actually makes traffic worse as drivers are forced down a few streets.

They also should create a few car free streets like manhattan did.

They also should put in a toll bridge from Virginia and stop reciprocal deal with nearby states.

I see so many out of state cars clogging roads, dumping trash, providing police service for yet they pay no Montgomery county taxes. Downturn Bethesda is a mad house during day of out of state license plates that pay. I Tax.

And so many small units in Bethesda was ment for singles, downsized, newlyweds who pay MD tax but instead tons of out of state residents who pay very little tax MD.

I lived downtown Bethesda walking distance to Metro and late at night and weekends a ghost town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We live in one of those tear-downs, and were in competition with a builder who wanted to raze it down and build a McMansion.

However nobody cares about that, OP, compared to the scandalous overbuilding in downtown Bethesda.

For years, MCPS has ignored parents who kept warning that they should count the families with school-aged children living in high-rises, to correctly predict future demographics and school growth. MCPS did nothing, and current predictions for school population growth do not take these buildings into account. Result: the Bethesda Elementary school max capacity is 500 (counting recent addition) and the current number of students is nearly 700. We have portables, and children are obliged to go out in all weather to the main building to go to the bathroom. Portables are hot in summer and cold in winter and do not have the same security as the main building. Core spaces such as the cafeteria and gym are too small, leading to Kindergartners having lunch at 10:30am because mealtimes must be staggered. As a result of all these things, quality of instruction has suffered.

The county council is in the developers' pockets and has lied to the community about finding ways to slow construction of tall buildings while waiting to implement school solutions. Nothing short of a new elementary school would solve the problems here, but there are school issues up and down the county, and we are not a priority. Somerset and Westbrook have made a deal with shuttle some Somerset students to Westbrook. Boundary changes are perhaps in the works, which is a big deal for parents, who buy expensive housing for certain school districts.

The school field is full of dog poo because there are more dog owners than ever before and Bethesda does not have a dog field.

Traffic is a nightmare.

I could go on.

But McMansions, however ugly they are - and I agree with you on that point! - are not really in the top 10 problems.

Huh? There's no deal to shuttle Somerset students to Westbrook. There is a placeholder in the capital budget whereby a solution to the Somerset overcrowding problem should be resolved sort of maybe in the next 6 years. I do agree with your point that McMansions, while being obnoxious when built on a 5000 square foot lot, are less important than the broader overcrowding issues.

You need to keep up. A deal is in the works but perhaps the news hasn't trickled down to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the housing stock in Bethesda is not that "charming". There are also plenty of young families in these tear downs, these neighborhoods are filled with kids. People have money here (or their families do and are willing to help on down payments). I agree that some of the new mcmansions are terrible, but many times, the homes they are replacing were not that great to begin with. I think it is better growth and development policy to encourage people to teardown rather than take build new in green space in the outer burbs.

+1

+2

People live differently nowadays, and there are only so many additions one can make before the additions no longer make sense. As other PP stated, it is cheaper, in the long run, to knock down the old house and build proper space for today's way of life. You are paying for the land. There are plenty of areas of the country where the old houses are large, beautiful and useful - but the D.C. area is not it.

Yes. As someone who bought an old house in Bethesda, it was in no way, shape or form "charming" or "cute" - it was a complete dump. A ridiculous layout, poorly maintained - barely habitable. Due to a quirky lot size, a teardown (or even a traditional bump back addition) was not feasible - that's why we got it, because developers weren't interested at the initial price point. So, we did a gut job renovation, and added a modest amunt of space, all in keeping with the character of the neighborhood. It cost substantially more than if we'd been able to tear it down and start over.

[Anonymous]

I'm not opposed to people building new houses. I sometimes wish they weren't all so big but the truth is land is so expensive that when the time comes to build a new house everyone-- whether developer or homeowner-- decides it makes more sense to build a 5/6 BR house that will be worth $1.5 million +, rather than a 3/4 BR house than will be worth $1 million.

Also, builders know what they can get approved when building from scratch-- if you go in and ask for a big renovation permits can actually take a lot longer/be more likely to get kicked back.

The county council did adopt some rules a few years ago to try and keep houses from getting too tall but it was after a lot of the turnover occurred in my neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I drive through Bethesda a lot and any smaller cute original home that gives neighborhood charm is being torn down. Then these massiive plywood boxes go up that lack any style, are cheaply made, take up most of lot and casts shadows on neighbors. Big houses usually have more occupants but given size of house on plot they have less parking.

The traffic gets worse and worse with each new McMansion and the construction is a nightmare for neighbors.

Why does Bethesda allow it? Can't they put brakes on it or at least tax these new homes at a higher rate? My old town outside Maryland had lots of cute original homes with tons of character. A tear down on my old neighborhood never happen and homes were all 1940s and 1950s homes. We tax on build quality and square footage. New construction pays 100 percent higher tax rate per square foot and new construction is usually bigger.

Knock down a 1500 sf house with 6k taxes and build a 3,000 sf new home taxes are 24,000. Or make the whole thing historical. They have to stop the madness. It also kills young families. No more small older starter homes to buy. No more downsizing homes to buy. Just large overpriced boxes.

Do you think something like this is possible?

How are they cheaply made? Shot shacks were built as tract homes for the Poor's. How does traffic increase? Density of the same. 3000sf is small for a new build. Those old homes are crap

[Anonymous]

^^^^^

Just because they are brick does not mean they were built well. They were not built well.

[Anonymous]

OP is obviously one of the oldsters who bought his/her tiny Bethesda house 20 years ago for next to nothing and, despite benefiting greatly from appreciation over the years due to all of the nice new houses in the neighborhood, cannot afford one himself/herself, and is now bitching that the nice, big Craftsman-style house next door is creating shade on his/her shitty little tomato garden.

[Anonymous]

The county LOVES these hideous monstrosities as the county does get more in taxes. Bethesda gets nothing but reduced quality of life.

Also benefitting - local realtors and builders getting rich off of these high priced sales and pocketing it all. Other Nethesda residents , again, get nothing but a reduced quality of life.

Now when people, especially older residents, are looking for a small house there aren’t any because the builders have bought them all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The county LOVES these hideous monstrosities as the county does get more in taxes. Bethesda gets nothing but reduced quality of life.

Also benefitting - local realtors and builders getting rich off of these high priced sales and pocketing it all. Other Nethesda residents , again, get nothing but a reduced quality of life.

Now when people, especially older residents, are looking for a small house there aren’t any because the builders have bought them all.

Please explain how a larger house on your street gives you a "reduced quality of life."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is obviously one of the oldsters who bought his/her tiny Bethesda house 20 years ago for next to nothing and, despite benefiting greatly from appreciation over the years due to all of the nice new houses in the neighborhood, cannot afford one himself/herself, and is now bitching that the nice, big Craftsman-style house next door is creating shade on his/her shitty little tomato garden.

They’re not nice, they are hideously cheaply made ugly boxes with weird triable and box things sticking out all over haphazardly. They are not often nice craftsman houses at all, they are awful things to look at.

There is a builder named ‘Mimar’ who is building awful , ugly large homes in our neighborhood. They are just awful to look at.

Not all new homes are awful looking - there was a builder known as ‘Welty’ , for instance, who built attractive well made homes. Most of the ones going up now are real stinkers. And the neighborhood is just flat out dumb to not be negotiating some kind of benefit for the community for having to deal with the nonstop construction vehicles and noise of construction and to have these builders and realtors share a tiny bit of the immense profits for the good of the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

I lived in a tiny Bethesda split level for a decade. Amazingly it hasn’t been torn down but it’s a matter of time and it will not be a loss. It was not cute or charming. We moved rather than rebuild.

If someone rebuilds it’s unlikely they will put more people in the house. Families are getting smaller not larger. I live in sumner now and the houses were built to accommodate catholic families with 5-6 kids. Very few, if any, families in our neighborhood are that large now.

[Anonymous]

Get over yourself 8:36. One thing for sure, there are some lousy architects working in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county LOVES these hideous monstrosities as the county does get more in taxes. Bethesda gets nothing but reduced quality of life.

Also benefitting - local realtors and builders getting rich off of these high priced sales and pocketing it all. Other Nethesda residents , again, get nothing but a reduced quality of life.

Now when people, especially older residents, are looking for a small house there aren’t any because the builders have bought them all.

Please explain how a larger house on your street gives you a "reduced quality of life."

New poster - but there used to be attractive brick homes to see walking down the street and now there are hideous beige monstrosities with haphazard triangles all over them for ‘style’. The trees and yards are gone and instead there is a big beige box. Many of the new residents come home & you never see them after they drive into their garage & the door goes down - that has changed the character of the neighborhood. The people that live in those homes often leave after just a few years to ‘trade up’ homes which is also different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get over yourself 8:36. One thing for sure, there are some lousy architects working in this area.

There are no architects being hired.. You’re not being serious, are you? What architect is going to take responsibility for those things?