Should people "quarantining" at their vacation homes maybe just stay there post-pandemic?

[Anonymous]

Maybe communities should be allowed to vote on who gets to live there. I can't see anything going wrong with such an elegant scheme.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe communities should be allowed to vote on who gets to live there. I can't see anything going wrong with such an elegant scheme.

The housing market, tax ordinances, local planning/zoning commissions, and flawed data schemes like GreatSchools can often be both exclusionary and segregationist. Voting per se is unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

What’s a demanding neighbor actually demanding? Just curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe communities should be allowed to vote on who gets to live there. I can't see anything going wrong with such an elegant scheme.

The housing market, tax ordinances, local planning/zoning commissions, and flawed data schemes like GreatSchools can often be both exclusionary and segregationist. Voting per se is unnecessary.

It's not working well enough for some people that want to keep out people who own too many houses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe communities should be allowed to vote on who gets to live there. I can't see anything going wrong with such an elegant scheme.

The housing market, tax ordinances, local planning/zoning commissions, and flawed data schemes like GreatSchools can often be both exclusionary and segregationist. Voting per se is unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe communities should be allowed to vote on who gets to live there. I can't see anything going wrong with such an elegant scheme.

The housing market, tax ordinances, local planning/zoning commissions, and flawed data schemes like GreatSchools can often be both exclusionary and segregationist. Voting per se is unnecessary.

It's not working well enough for some people that want to keep out people who own too many houses.

I would support tax policy that heavily discourages people from owning too many houses. It's been a problem in NY for years -- wealthy foreigners buying up housing stock because it's a good place to stash their money, and then it sits empty while most of the city is priced out of the housing market.

It's not nearly as bad in DC... yet. But we could take some steps to avoid Manhattan's fate. Not saying we should prevent anyone from owning multiple houses, but if we taxed non-resident houses differently (and specifically penalized anyone leaving their "extra" houses vacant or using them exclusively as short-term rentals which do nothing to help the housing supply issue), I can imagine being in favor of that. You want an investment property, fine. But it's taxed like the business it is and if you aren't willing to get a renter in there, you've got to pay a premium to the city so that they can sink it into affordable housing stock.

I know this is a tangent, but empty houses are really, really bad for a city, even when they are owned by wealthy people. Covid is a special circumstance, but as a general rule, we want people to be living in their houses (and spending their money locally and deterring crime via their presence and sending their kids to the local schools, etc.). You don't have to be on the neighborhood listserv and attend block parties, but you do have to be present.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like wishful thinking.

This. You might be better off, but you have absolutely zero control over it.

In our neighborhood, the high maintenance are the ones who bought for nothing and demand everything - think they own the whole neighborhood.