MoCo Council Vote Today

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People here need to realize that "inclusionary zoning" only exists because people won't accept a real tax to support affordable housing, so counties mandate the builders set aside units for poor people. It is a hidden tax on middle class renters due to lower supply.

What goes unsaid is that rich homeowners are not affected by this policy. In fact, it enriches them because it reduces the supple of housing.

This is why NIMBY homeowners yell about "affordable housing". They don't actually care - they just want renters to stay poor and stop development.

That’s ludicrous. Also, pay attention. The county just passed a tax abatement that will defer taxes for 100% for 20 years for these developments. That means taxpayers will be footing the bill for all of the infrastructure and schools and upkeep in the meantime. That’s a tax on everyone so that developers make more $$$. That hurts middle and working class people. That makes cost of living higher and quality of life lower.

Funny, I thought schools were for kids and families, not developers.

Funny I thought the schools, the transit, and the roads made properties more valuable. You’re just trying to capture public investment as part of your profit margin. Do you actually build anything or do you just buy and sell real estate?

That would make more sense if schools weren't already a public good and required by the state constitution.

Public infrastructure and services have historically been paid for primarily through taxes- "paying back" for the construction through their taxes that go to other new projects elsewhere in the county, that repay bonds, and that fund the maintenance and operation across the area.

Now that you're already a resident, you want new residents to pay twice-- first through development fees and then through taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The next bill in this package is an SRA that Andrew Friedson introduced Tuesday. As proposed, the SRA would allow developers to combine three lots and still build under the ZTA. In effect, the SRA moves the ZTA from duplexes and small apartment buildings to apartment buildings that can stretch half a block or more, with ground floor retail in some locations and effectively no affordable housing requirements.

This is a selling point for some. Many delusional neighbors seem to think we will get artisanal cheese shops and local coffee roasters, rather than Jersey's Mike's and mattress stores. Ah, nothing like a nice Sunday morning walk to test out a new Tempur-Pedic.

Retail is a selling point for me in some locations. For the lots that are on service roads, I don’t think it makes sense. They should have excluded the lots on service roads from the ZTA because they’re not actually on the corridor itself but they decided not to.

You might not get a coffee shop or bakery, it will probably be a night club, bar, or marijuana dispensary. People are too easy to fool with distracting and dishonest campaign tactics. The end goal of the YIMBYs is to eliminate zoning entirely and allow everything anywhere. If we let them win your neighbor will be able to turn their house into a 24 strip club+bar and there will be nothing you can do to protect yourself. These zoning reforms mainly benefit the ultra wealthy who have significant investments in real estate development firms at the expense of middle class and upper middle class homeowners. The middle class people will suffer the consequences when their schools are overcrowded, noise pollution is harming their sleep quality, and secondhand smoke is worsening their kids asthma. The ultra wealthy developers lobbying for these reforms are largely unaffected because they live in exclusive neighborhoods that have rules to protect their family from their own policies and they (usually) send their kids to private school.

So you're saying MoCo is going to circumvent state law and allow 24-hour liquor licenses now?

I never said that. My point is MOCO is very limited in its ability to protect residents and the state is coming up with new ways to limit localities capacity to protect residents every year. I have lived next to a bar that operates late into the night before and it’s not pleasant. When you need to wake up at 5am or 6am to get to your job having a bar or restaurant that closes at 1am to 2am is a significant nuisance. Enforcement of county noise ordinances is atrocious in MOCO and residential building codes (in the US) are woefully insufficient to mitigate to impact of noise pollution.

The whole YIMBY argument that people should “just move” if they don’t agree with proposed zoning changes is ridiculous. There is nowhere for these people that need quiet neighborhoods for (personal or health reasons) to move to if people can put a bar almost anywhere in the county.

The NIMBY argument: Just be homeless!

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.

Is that the takeaway you get from the above? No one is talking about choosing neighbors. But people have the right to choose neighborhoods and to know, especially if they’re buying a home, that the fundamental character of the neighborhood won’t be undermined to satisfy developer profits. Again, there’s little in these bills that actually help middle and working class people.

What I also find so interesting about the so-called YIMBYs is they pretend to care about working class and middle class people but these neighborhoods are ALL middle class and working class people and they DO NOT WANT these bills. They chose to live in the communities and to buy in these communities because they wanted a single family home or a quiet street or to be able to look up and see trees vs buildings. The county is saying they don’t have the right to do that - apparently that’s only for the rich people west county. So hypocritical.

You people decrying "developer profits" need to stop until you move into a home that was only built by a non-profit. Else, you are a total hypocrite. "Profit" is not a bad thing unless you are a 18 year old DSA member living in your parents basement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People here need to realize that "inclusionary zoning" only exists because people won't accept a real tax to support affordable housing, so counties mandate the builders set aside units for poor people. It is a hidden tax on middle class renters due to lower supply.

What goes unsaid is that rich homeowners are not affected by this policy. In fact, it enriches them because it reduces the supple of housing.

This is why NIMBY homeowners yell about "affordable housing". They don't actually care - they just want renters to stay poor and stop development.

That’s ludicrous. Also, pay attention. The county just passed a tax abatement that will defer taxes for 100% for 20 years for these developments. That means taxpayers will be footing the bill for all of the infrastructure and schools and upkeep in the meantime. That’s a tax on everyone so that developers make more $$$. That hurts middle and working class people. That makes cost of living higher and quality of life lower.

I like how you conveniently avoiding talking about the IZ tax. Thanks, I accept your concession.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People here need to realize that "inclusionary zoning" only exists because people won't accept a real tax to support affordable housing, so counties mandate the builders set aside units for poor people. It is a hidden tax on middle class renters due to lower supply.

What goes unsaid is that rich homeowners are not affected by this policy. In fact, it enriches them because it reduces the supple of housing.

This is why NIMBY homeowners yell about "affordable housing". They don't actually care - they just want renters to stay poor and stop development.

That’s ludicrous. Also, pay attention. The county just passed a tax abatement that will defer taxes for 100% for 20 years for these developments. That means taxpayers will be footing the bill for all of the infrastructure and schools and upkeep in the meantime. That’s a tax on everyone so that developers make more $$$. That hurts middle and working class people. That makes cost of living higher and quality of life lower.

Funny, I thought schools were for kids and families, not developers.

Funny I thought the schools, the transit, and the roads made properties more valuable. You’re just trying to capture public investment as part of your profit margin. Do you actually build anything or do you just buy and sell real estate?

That would make more sense if schools weren't already a public good and required by the state constitution.

Public infrastructure and services have historically been paid for primarily through taxes- "paying back" for the construction through their taxes that go to other new projects elsewhere in the county, that repay bonds, and that fund the maintenance and operation across the area.

Now that you're already a resident, you want new residents to pay twice-- first through development fees and then through taxes.

We now have a system where some landlords won’t pay at all, either through impact fees or property taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People here need to realize that "inclusionary zoning" only exists because people won't accept a real tax to support affordable housing, so counties mandate the builders set aside units for poor people. It is a hidden tax on middle class renters due to lower supply.

What goes unsaid is that rich homeowners are not affected by this policy. In fact, it enriches them because it reduces the supple of housing.

This is why NIMBY homeowners yell about "affordable housing". They don't actually care - they just want renters to stay poor and stop development.

That’s ludicrous. Also, pay attention. The county just passed a tax abatement that will defer taxes for 100% for 20 years for these developments. That means taxpayers will be footing the bill for all of the infrastructure and schools and upkeep in the meantime. That’s a tax on everyone so that developers make more $$$. That hurts middle and working class people. That makes cost of living higher and quality of life lower.

I like how you conveniently avoiding talking about the IZ tax. Thanks, I accept your concession.

DP. You still haven’t addressed home ownership by anyone other than landlords. Convenient. Landlordism is to capitalism what a tapeworm is to a person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The next bill in this package is an SRA that Andrew Friedson introduced Tuesday. As proposed, the SRA would allow developers to combine three lots and still build under the ZTA. In effect, the SRA moves the ZTA from duplexes and small apartment buildings to apartment buildings that can stretch half a block or more, with ground floor retail in some locations and effectively no affordable housing requirements.

This is a selling point for some. Many delusional neighbors seem to think we will get artisanal cheese shops and local coffee roasters, rather than Jersey's Mike's and mattress stores. Ah, nothing like a nice Sunday morning walk to test out a new Tempur-Pedic.

Retail is a selling point for me in some locations. For the lots that are on service roads, I don’t think it makes sense. They should have excluded the lots on service roads from the ZTA because they’re not actually on the corridor itself but they decided not to.

You might not get a coffee shop or bakery, it will probably be a night club, bar, or marijuana dispensary. People are too easy to fool with distracting and dishonest campaign tactics. The end goal of the YIMBYs is to eliminate zoning entirely and allow everything anywhere. If we let them win your neighbor will be able to turn their house into a 24 strip club+bar and there will be nothing you can do to protect yourself. These zoning reforms mainly benefit the ultra wealthy who have significant investments in real estate development firms at the expense of middle class and upper middle class homeowners. The middle class people will suffer the consequences when their schools are overcrowded, noise pollution is harming their sleep quality, and secondhand smoke is worsening their kids asthma. The ultra wealthy developers lobbying for these reforms are largely unaffected because they live in exclusive neighborhoods that have rules to protect their family from their own policies and they (usually) send their kids to private school.

So you're saying MoCo is going to circumvent state law and allow 24-hour liquor licenses now?

I never said that. My point is MOCO is very limited in its ability to protect residents and the state is coming up with new ways to limit localities capacity to protect residents every year. I have lived next to a bar that operates late into the night before and it’s not pleasant. When you need to wake up at 5am or 6am to get to your job having a bar or restaurant that closes at 1am to 2am is a significant nuisance. Enforcement of county noise ordinances is atrocious in MOCO and residential building codes (in the US) are woefully insufficient to mitigate to impact of noise pollution.

The whole YIMBY argument that people should “just move” if they don’t agree with proposed zoning changes is ridiculous. There is nowhere for these people that need quiet neighborhoods for (personal or health reasons) to move to if people can put a bar almost anywhere in the county.

The NIMBY argument: Just be homeless!

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.

Is that the takeaway you get from the above? No one is talking about choosing neighbors. But people have the right to choose neighborhoods and to know, especially if they’re buying a home, that the fundamental character of the neighborhood won’t be undermined to satisfy developer profits. Again, there’s little in these bills that actually help middle and working class people.

What I also find so interesting about the so-called YIMBYs is they pretend to care about working class and middle class people but these neighborhoods are ALL middle class and working class people and they DO NOT WANT these bills. They chose to live in the communities and to buy in these communities because they wanted a single family home or a quiet street or to be able to look up and see trees vs buildings. The county is saying they don’t have the right to do that - apparently that’s only for the rich people west county. So hypocritical.

You people decrying "developer profits" need to stop until you move into a home that was only built by a non-profit. Else, you are a total hypocrite. "Profit" is not a bad thing unless you are a 18 year old DSA member living in your parents basement.

They're just demonizing developers because they can't use racially restrictive covenants anymore. That is the history of Kemp Hill, after all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People here need to realize that "inclusionary zoning" only exists because people won't accept a real tax to support affordable housing, so counties mandate the builders set aside units for poor people. It is a hidden tax on middle class renters due to lower supply.

What goes unsaid is that rich homeowners are not affected by this policy. In fact, it enriches them because it reduces the supple of housing.

This is why NIMBY homeowners yell about "affordable housing". They don't actually care - they just want renters to stay poor and stop development.

That’s ludicrous. Also, pay attention. The county just passed a tax abatement that will defer taxes for 100% for 20 years for these developments. That means taxpayers will be footing the bill for all of the infrastructure and schools and upkeep in the meantime. That’s a tax on everyone so that developers make more $$$. That hurts middle and working class people. That makes cost of living higher and quality of life lower.

Funny, I thought schools were for kids and families, not developers.

Funny I thought the schools, the transit, and the roads made properties more valuable. You’re just trying to capture public investment as part of your profit margin. Do you actually build anything or do you just buy and sell real estate?

That would make more sense if schools weren't already a public good and required by the state constitution.

Public infrastructure and services have historically been paid for primarily through taxes- "paying back" for the construction through their taxes that go to other new projects elsewhere in the county, that repay bonds, and that fund the maintenance and operation across the area.

Now that you're already a resident, you want new residents to pay twice-- first through development fees and then through taxes.

We now have a system where some landlords won’t pay at all, either through impact fees or property taxes.

Since you claim to want below-market-rate housing built, how do you propose incentivizing it? And who would pay for it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t we build on green space up i270? I’m sure land would be cheaper.

And then add more people who ahve to drive everywhere on roads that are already overcongested. hence focusing housing in transit corridors, you know, the way the rest of the world does it.

So you oppose SFH up 270. How does that make you different from people who oppose small apartment buildings in Chevy Chase? You both want to ban some housing because you don’t like it.

You don't get out much. Development up 270 continues. But it isn't good for anyone to have sprawl be the only path to additional housing.

It’s not the only path to additional housing and I think you know this. More housing has been built down county than upcounty in recent years. But it’s mostly rentals. The biggest mismatch in supply and demand is actually homes available for purchase. That mismatch has driven prices up in all market segments because it’s forced people to rent longer than they have in the past.

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.

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.

Homeownership is massively subsidized via fixed rate mortgages. The idea that is should be a pathway to generational wealth is absurd and is basically a ponzi scheme.

Renting isn't, and shouldn't, be viewed as a negative from the start. Families rent a lot in many other countries and it's perfectly fine.

Homeownership is an accessible way for the middle class to build financial stability. The homeownership rate in the US is globally in the middle range and there are around 50 countries that have higher homeownership rates. The high-density development policies you support effectively trap middle income and below households into a permanent renter status which will prevent them from accumulating wealth for their families. It’s usually more profitable and efficient for developers to sell multifamily developments to private equity funds than to sell units to individual buyers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t we build on green space up i270? I’m sure land would be cheaper.

And then add more people who ahve to drive everywhere on roads that are already overcongested. hence focusing housing in transit corridors, you know, the way the rest of the world does it.

So you oppose SFH up 270. How does that make you different from people who oppose small apartment buildings in Chevy Chase? You both want to ban some housing because you don’t like it.

You don't get out much. Development up 270 continues. But it isn't good for anyone to have sprawl be the only path to additional housing.

It’s not the only path to additional housing and I think you know this. More housing has been built down county than upcounty in recent years. But it’s mostly rentals. The biggest mismatch in supply and demand is actually homes available for purchase. That mismatch has driven prices up in all market segments because it’s forced people to rent longer than they have in the past.

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.

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.

Homeownership is massively subsidized via fixed rate mortgages. The idea that is should be a pathway to generational wealth is absurd and is basically a ponzi scheme.

Renting isn't, and shouldn't, be viewed as a negative from the start. Families rent a lot in many other countries and it's perfectly fine.

Homeownership is an accessible way for the middle class to build financial stability. The homeownership rate in the US is globally in the middle range and there are around 50 countries that have higher homeownership rates. The high-density development policies you support effectively trap middle income and below households into a permanent renter status which will prevent them from accumulating wealth for their families. It’s usually more profitable and efficient for developers to sell multifamily developments to private equity funds than to sell units to individual buyers.

Please talk to any financial advisor. Renting and putting money into average index stocks will bear tremendous value.

Homeownership is only more valuable when you artificially restrict the building of homes, which inflates the value.

Please tell me how homes can continue to rise in value more than inflation and go on forever? Please tell me how that makes sense.

Homes cannot be both an investment and affordable. NIMBYs think the investment side is free and doesn't incur a cost on society. It does - on renters and the poor. But NIMBY homeowners don't care about those people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can’t we build on green space up i270? I’m sure land would be cheaper.

And then add more people who ahve to drive everywhere on roads that are already overcongested. hence focusing housing in transit corridors, you know, the way the rest of the world does it.

So you oppose SFH up 270. How does that make you different from people who oppose small apartment buildings in Chevy Chase? You both want to ban some housing because you don’t like it.

You don't get out much. Development up 270 continues. But it isn't good for anyone to have sprawl be the only path to additional housing.

It’s not the only path to additional housing and I think you know this. More housing has been built down county than upcounty in recent years. But it’s mostly rentals. The biggest mismatch in supply and demand is actually homes available for purchase. That mismatch has driven prices up in all market segments because it’s forced people to rent longer than they have in the past.

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.

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.

Homeownership is massively subsidized via fixed rate mortgages. The idea that is should be a pathway to generational wealth is absurd and is basically a ponzi scheme.

Renting isn't, and shouldn't, be viewed as a negative from the start. Families rent a lot in many other countries and it's perfectly fine.

Homeownership is an accessible way for the middle class to build financial stability. The homeownership rate in the US is globally in the middle range and there are around 50 countries that have higher homeownership rates. The high-density development policies you support effectively trap middle income and below households into a permanent renter status which will prevent them from accumulating wealth for their families. It’s usually more profitable and efficient for developers to sell multifamily developments to private equity funds than to sell units to individual buyers.

Please talk to any financial advisor. Renting and putting money into average index stocks will bear tremendous value.

Homeownership is only more valuable when you artificially restrict the building of homes, which inflates the value.

Please tell me how homes can continue to rise in value more than inflation and go on forever? Please tell me how that makes sense.

Homes cannot be both an investment and affordable. NIMBYs think the investment side is free and doesn't incur a cost on society. It does - on renters and the poor. But NIMBY homeowners don't care about those people.

OK, dude. I guess that’s why the big developers own houses.

I don’t think of my house as an asset. I think of it as a place to live. One side benefit of owning is that I’m still paying 2010 prices for my house instead of having the rent go up every year. That means I’m investing a lot more in index funds (and REITs too!) than I could if I were still renting. I literally spend about 15 percent of my monthly income on PITI.

Literally no one is better off having to spend 33 percent of their income on housing for life. Owning is tight for the first few years but eventually you can inflate your way out of the payment and life is good.

Also, my house has kept appreciating even as 100s of houses and a few hundred apartments have been built within walking distance.

[Anonymous]

All,

Let him live in his own little happy world. Please don't try to explain his mortgage amortization schedule to him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All,

Let him live in his own little happy world. Please don't try to explain his mortgage amortization schedule to him.

Not sure who you think you’re talking to but I’ve spent a lot less on housing in the last 15 years than I would have if I kept renting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All,

Let him live in his own little happy world. Please don't try to explain his mortgage amortization schedule to him.

Not sure who you think you’re talking to but I’ve spent a lot less on housing in the last 15 years than I would have if I kept renting.

I'm sure that's true, but you also 1) got in near the bottom of the market and at unprecedented, low interest rates, 2) probably haven't moved in that time, and 3) have been a beneficiary of tax subsidies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All,

Let him live in his own little happy world. Please don't try to explain his mortgage amortization schedule to him.

Not sure who you think you’re talking to but I’ve spent a lot less on housing in the last 15 years than I would have if I kept renting.

I'm sure that's true, but you also 1) got in near the bottom of the market and at unprecedented, low interest rates, 2) probably haven't moved in that time, and 3) have been a beneficiary of tax subsidies.

Not as much as the landlord class. Landlords will always want to raise rent, so it’s hard to get ahead if you’re renting.

There wouldn’t be a housing crisis if landlords hadn’t spent so much money getting politicians to rig the rules to favor constructing rentals. The business model is the crisis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The next bill in this package is an SRA that Andrew Friedson introduced Tuesday. As proposed, the SRA would allow developers to combine three lots and still build under the ZTA. In effect, the SRA moves the ZTA from duplexes and small apartment buildings to apartment buildings that can stretch half a block or more, with ground floor retail in some locations and effectively no affordable housing requirements.

This is a selling point for some. Many delusional neighbors seem to think we will get artisanal cheese shops and local coffee roasters, rather than Jersey's Mike's and mattress stores. Ah, nothing like a nice Sunday morning walk to test out a new Tempur-Pedic.

Retail is a selling point for me in some locations. For the lots that are on service roads, I don’t think it makes sense. They should have excluded the lots on service roads from the ZTA because they’re not actually on the corridor itself but they decided not to.

You might not get a coffee shop or bakery, it will probably be a night club, bar, or marijuana dispensary. People are too easy to fool with distracting and dishonest campaign tactics. The end goal of the YIMBYs is to eliminate zoning entirely and allow everything anywhere. If we let them win your neighbor will be able to turn their house into a 24 strip club+bar and there will be nothing you can do to protect yourself. These zoning reforms mainly benefit the ultra wealthy who have significant investments in real estate development firms at the expense of middle class and upper middle class homeowners. The middle class people will suffer the consequences when their schools are overcrowded, noise pollution is harming their sleep quality, and secondhand smoke is worsening their kids asthma. The ultra wealthy developers lobbying for these reforms are largely unaffected because they live in exclusive neighborhoods that have rules to protect their family from their own policies and they (usually) send their kids to private school.

So you're saying MoCo is going to circumvent state law and allow 24-hour liquor licenses now?

I never said that. My point is MOCO is very limited in its ability to protect residents and the state is coming up with new ways to limit localities capacity to protect residents every year. I have lived next to a bar that operates late into the night before and it’s not pleasant. When you need to wake up at 5am or 6am to get to your job having a bar or restaurant that closes at 1am to 2am is a significant nuisance. Enforcement of county noise ordinances is atrocious in MOCO and residential building codes (in the US) are woefully insufficient to mitigate to impact of noise pollution.

The whole YIMBY argument that people should “just move” if they don’t agree with proposed zoning changes is ridiculous. There is nowhere for these people that need quiet neighborhoods for (personal or health reasons) to move to if people can put a bar almost anywhere in the county.

The NIMBY argument: Just be homeless!

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.

Is that the takeaway you get from the above? No one is talking about choosing neighbors. But people have the right to choose neighborhoods and to know, especially if they’re buying a home, that the fundamental character of the neighborhood won’t be undermined to satisfy developer profits. Again, there’s little in these bills that actually help middle and working class people.

What I also find so interesting about the so-called YIMBYs is they pretend to care about working class and middle class people but these neighborhoods are ALL middle class and working class people and they DO NOT WANT these bills. They chose to live in the communities and to buy in these communities because they wanted a single family home or a quiet street or to be able to look up and see trees vs buildings. The county is saying they don’t have the right to do that - apparently that’s only for the rich people west county. So hypocritical.

You people decrying "developer profits" need to stop until you move into a home that was only built by a non-profit. Else, you are a total hypocrite. "Profit" is not a bad thing unless you are a 18 year old DSA member living in your parents basement.

They're just demonizing developers because they can't use racially restrictive covenants anymore. That is the history of Kemp Hill, after all.

This is just as ridiculous and cringe as the posters the YIMBY’s love to share that says something like, “I’m always suspicious of Black Lives Matter signs in front of a house. The real test is how they feel that apartment building goes up across the street.”

Aside from being terrible logic…it’s bizarre to try to falsely equate an argument with racism. Cops shouldn’t shoot Black people, also something about apartments! It’s shameful to use the movement to support your hobby project.

I mean, I guess I get it, because YIMBYville is 100% Honkeytown, USA, but do these Sim City nerds really not understand how patronizing that is to people of color? How they assigned them an economic class and housing type based on their race?

I guess that clearly in the YIMBY mind POC wouldn’t be homeowners that also care about whether or not an apartment building then goes up across the street from their house. They jus’ po’ folk that needs some white saviors.