Not only is that absurd, but literally nothing about any of the recent plans addresses affordable housing. Real, true affordable housing. This is just the County Council giving it all away to developers and it hurts the middle class and working class SFH neighborhoods that are largely the focus of this - they’re not pulling this sh!t in Bethesda and Potomac. |
The More Housing NOW tax abatement only applies to rentals. The ZTA has no requirement to make anything available for purchase and landlords may charge more $3,000 a month for an apartment and still call it workforce housing under the law. There’s nothing here that’s going to help anyone buy anything and there’s nothing in here that’s going to help the workforce. |
Fani Gonzalez, Friedson, and Glass need to be voted out. They masquerade as being for the little people and then sell out neighborhoods underneath them. True Story: on July 16 I attended Fani Gonzalez’s “listening session” on the University Boulevard Corridor Plan in Kemp Mill. Many of the attendees - probably 80% - were from the orthodox Jewish Kemp Mill community. Others there were from communities affected by the ZTA bill and/or other neighborhoods impacted by these plans. The neighborhoods represented - people usually started comments with where they live so it was easy to track - are all working class and middle class communities and very diverse. Kemp Mill, while it had a large orthodox community, is also very diverse. There were hundreds of people in attendance. People lined up for hours - literally - to share concerns. There was not a single person who wanted more density, or rezoning, or BRT centers smacked right in the middle of already congested roads. Not one person. Fani Gonzalez pretended to care. She even started out the session by bringing her “friend” Council Member Katz from Gaithersburg on stage to basically tell the crowd that Fani Gonzalez is a good person - I guess she need to trot out a Jew to tell Jews she’s ok because they can’t think for themselves. /s Anyway, after listening to hours of concerns, including people who will lose land because of the ZTA, Fani Gonzalez voted FOR the bill less than a week later. In other words, this was all performative BS. And interestingly, Council Member Katz did not vote for the bill …. So why did she enlist him on July 16? The tokenism is just gross. It’s also misleading. She likely knew he had no intention of voting for the bill and so did he. Shame on both of them. This bill is a nightmare and will hurt the very communities that Fani Gonzalez and these sell outs like Glass, Friedson, abs Stewart are pushing. It’s time to vote them out. Remember this next year at the polls. |
It's amazing that some people still think they should have the right to choose who their neighbors can be. |
It’s amazing that that is your delusional takeaway. BTW, there are already high-rises in Kemp Mill, hence the concern about additional density. You’d know that if you actually loved around here and weren’t another GGW shill. |
Price controls don't work. The have modest short-term benefits while creating disasterous long-term problems. We need more housing close to jobs and transit. You won't get that it you discourage investment. |
Of course that's what's going on. It's not always motivated by racial or socioeconomic segregation, but ultimately comes back to people thinking they should get to control others. |
The population will continue to grow. We can create more housing, but we can't create more space. Not at ground level, at least. Higher density development in desirable areas benefits more people-- both to the increased number of people that can live in those areas and to others, through the reducing infrastructure and environmental impacts of sprawl. |
To be clear, this means walking away from inclusionary zoning. Your prescription will worsen economic segregation in this county. |
The other thread said the quiet part out loud:
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You’re dodging. What is your solution to increasing home ownership? A large majority of renters would rather own and that’s what they want government to fix. I don’t care if it’s horizontal or vertical. You prefer vertical. How do you incentivize developers to deliver more condos? Right now they would rather be landlords and keep as many people renting as possible. |
Birth Control and Border Control, not Rent Control |
Mandating or encouraging below-market-rate housing development as a bandaid for segregated communities can be reasonable, but that addresses the social impact of entirely segregated communities, rather than addressing the affordable housing problem. And would need to be implemented with other incentives to offset the disincentives it creates to build housing. But that doesn't require every project to include below-market-rate homes. That isn't practical for smaller-scale projects, nor is it necessary for the goal. |
This "evil greedy developer" schtick really is getting old. There is 0 evidence to support that claim. Hint: a greedy evil developer built the house you are living in. An evil greedy corporation built the computer you are using right now. |
Inclusionary zoning is a tax on the middle class. Will you volunteer 10% of your rent to low-income people living in the apartment next to you? Didn't think so. Don't make us pay for your social engineering experiements. |