MoCo Council Vote Today

[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.

Literally has nothing to do with the core discussion being had.

[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.

Literally has nothing to do with the core discussion being had.

Tell that to the person trying to convince others that this is about homeownership.

[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.

Literally has nothing to do with the core discussion being had.

Tell that to the person trying to convince others that this is about homeownership.

Tell that to Andrew Friedson who touted this as an opportunity for the workforce to buy houses in Montgomery County. What we got instead is market rate rentals subsidized in part by people who can’t even afford the rent. Whatever your view of ownership vs. renting, what does it say about Friedson and the bill that he sold it with lies?

[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.

Natalie, Andrew - is this you? Because no one is decrying profits. But we are decrying profits at the expense of the middle class and working class homeowners and residents of this county you claim to care about. Maybe listen to your constituents in all of these “listening sessions”. They are telling you to cut the BS.

[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.

Natalie, Andrew - is this you? Because no one is decrying profits. But we are decrying profits at the expense of the middle class and working class homeowners and residents of this county you claim to care about. Maybe listen to your constituents in all of these “listening sessions”. They are telling you to cut the BS.

This is what’s wrong with what Friedson and Fani Gonzalez did: They pretended that their bill was designed to help county employees and other public servants. But it was really just to help developers (who aren’t evil and at least build things) and land speculators whose activity is aimed to extract rents and is a drag on growth. The problem with everything that Friedson and Fani Gonzalez put forward is that it helps the land speculators more than anyone else. Very little trickles down (or filters, if you prefer) to other housing stakeholders.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, no one is blaming developers or calling them "evil" or whatever. That's a total strawman.

Developers are businesspeople, like anyone else. Thery need to make a profit for providing a good. And that's fine.

The issue is with the council and the advocates for this plan, using emotional tactics to sell this plan, that have absolutely no basis in reality.

"Dont you want teachers and firefighters, and nurses and cops to be able to live here??"

Well first of all, yes. Of course we do. But just like I would anyone making a middle class salary in the county, those jobs arent special as far as access to housing.

But then the plan itself is to allow duplexes, triplexes, townhomes- that all will be 700k+. What teacher is affording that? The answer is they are not.

But to sell the plan honestly- "look we just want more housing, period" would never work, so they lie. And the lie offends me, and I am hardly a NIMBY by any stretch. But this is pure gaslighting, and the county is going to get steamrolled. The "listening sessions" are a pure joke, the planning board and the council are going to do exactly what they always were going to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, no one is blaming developers or calling them "evil" or whatever. That's a total strawman.

Developers are businesspeople, like anyone else. Thery need to make a profit for providing a good. And that's fine.

The issue is with the council and the advocates for this plan, using emotional tactics to sell this plan, that have absolutely no basis in reality.

"Dont you want teachers and firefighters, and nurses and cops to be able to live here??"

Well first of all, yes. Of course we do. But just like I would anyone making a middle class salary in the county, those jobs arent special as far as access to housing.

But then the plan itself is to allow duplexes, triplexes, townhomes- that all will be 700k+. What teacher is affording that? The answer is they are not.

But to sell the plan honestly- "look we just want more housing, period" would never work, so they lie. And the lie offends me, and I am hardly a NIMBY by any stretch. But this is pure gaslighting, and the county is going to get steamrolled. The "listening sessions" are a pure joke, the planning board and the council are going to do exactly what they always were going to.

700k is cheaper than a 2 million mcmansion. And if people are married a 700k is absolutely in reach for a middle class family. Not sure what you are talking about there.

[Anonymous]

I suppose our personal finance math may differ, but two married people making a combined 140 a yr or so, I wouldnt feel comfortable with a 700k house. (thats on the low end by the way, the ones in Arlington ended up over 1M). But lets assume 700k here. You would need 140 for a down payment for an 80/20 mortgage.

Then you factor in property taxes, insurance, etc etc... no effing way two teachers or two nurses are swinging that.

Again-its a fairy tale story "we want affordable houses for teachers and nurses and cops!!" (then they build 700-1M triplexes, that none of those people will actually buy or be able to afford).

Just admit that.

[Anonymous]

I suppose our personal finance math may differ, but two married people making a combined 140 a yr or so, I wouldnt feel comfortable with a 700k house. (thats on the low end by the way, the ones in Arlington ended up over 1M). But lets assume 700k here. You would need 140 for a down payment for an 80/20 mortgage.

Then you factor in property taxes, insurance, etc etc... no effing way two teachers or two nurses are swinging that.

Again-its a fairy tale story "we want affordable houses for teachers and nurses and cops!!" (then they build 700-1M triplexes, that none of those people will actually buy or be able to afford).

Just admit that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, no one is blaming developers or calling them "evil" or whatever. That's a total strawman.

Developers are businesspeople, like anyone else. Thery need to make a profit for providing a good. And that's fine.

The issue is with the council and the advocates for this plan, using emotional tactics to sell this plan, that have absolutely no basis in reality.

"Dont you want teachers and firefighters, and nurses and cops to be able to live here??"

Well first of all, yes. Of course we do. But just like I would anyone making a middle class salary in the county, those jobs arent special as far as access to housing.

But then the plan itself is to allow duplexes, triplexes, townhomes- that all will be 700k+. What teacher is affording that? The answer is they are not.

But to sell the plan honestly- "look we just want more housing, period" would never work, so they lie. And the lie offends me, and I am hardly a NIMBY by any stretch. But this is pure gaslighting, and the county is going to get steamrolled. The "listening sessions" are a pure joke, the planning board and the council are going to do exactly what they always were going to.

700k is cheaper than a 2 million mcmansion. And if people are married a 700k is absolutely in reach for a middle class family. Not sure what you are talking about there.

You’re right. $700k is less than $2 million. But there’s nothing in this bill that makes a $700k unit available for purchase a required outcome or even a likely outcome. For duplexes, there’s no affordability requirement. For projects with three or more units, the minimum affordability requirement is one unit affordable at 120 percent AMI. That’s well over $140k in annual income for a two-person household. Nice try, chief, but the law and your fantasy produce totally different outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suppose our personal finance math may differ, but two married people making a combined 140 a yr or so, I wouldnt feel comfortable with a 700k house. (thats on the low end by the way, the ones in Arlington ended up over 1M). But lets assume 700k here. You would need 140 for a down payment for an 80/20 mortgage.

Then you factor in property taxes, insurance, etc etc... no effing way two teachers or two nurses are swinging that.

Again-its a fairy tale story "we want affordable houses for teachers and nurses and cops!!" (then they build 700-1M triplexes, that none of those people will actually buy or be able to afford).

Just admit that.

New construction is always going to demand a premium. The issue isn't so much what the new units will cost, but what effect they will have on other units compared to maintaining the status quo.

Scarcity drives prices. More people competing for the same number of homes is going to keep driving prices up faster than incomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suppose our personal finance math may differ, but two married people making a combined 140 a yr or so, I wouldnt feel comfortable with a 700k house. (thats on the low end by the way, the ones in Arlington ended up over 1M). But lets assume 700k here. You would need 140 for a down payment for an 80/20 mortgage.

Then you factor in property taxes, insurance, etc etc... no effing way two teachers or two nurses are swinging that.

Again-its a fairy tale story "we want affordable houses for teachers and nurses and cops!!" (then they build 700-1M triplexes, that none of those people will actually buy or be able to afford).

Just admit that.

New construction is always going to demand a premium. The issue isn't so much what the new units will cost, but what effect they will have on other units compared to maintaining the status quo.

Scarcity drives prices. More people competing for the same number of homes is going to keep driving prices up faster than incomes.

Now we’ve reached the point in the conversation where the YIMBYs admit the program won’t help the people it was supposed to help but tell us not to worry because the effects will just trickle down. The problem with that approach is that very little actually does trickle down (most benefit gets booked as profit), making your approach an ineffective transmission mechanism for support to the middle class.

The other problem with your approach is that developers are much less likely to build while prices are falling, so when prices fall because of a supply shock, the effect is short lived. On top of that, your approach relies on having a supply shock to begin with, and cities that have experienced a supply shock did so only after rents went up way more than they have around here. Your approach is not a sustainable way to increase housing stock and it shouldn’t be a basis for policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suppose our personal finance math may differ, but two married people making a combined 140 a yr or so, I wouldnt feel comfortable with a 700k house. (thats on the low end by the way, the ones in Arlington ended up over 1M). But lets assume 700k here. You would need 140 for a down payment for an 80/20 mortgage.

Then you factor in property taxes, insurance, etc etc... no effing way two teachers or two nurses are swinging that.

Again-its a fairy tale story "we want affordable houses for teachers and nurses and cops!!" (then they build 700-1M triplexes, that none of those people will actually buy or be able to afford).

Just admit that.

New construction is always going to demand a premium. The issue isn't so much what the new units will cost, but what effect they will have on other units compared to maintaining the status quo.

Scarcity drives prices. More people competing for the same number of homes is going to keep driving prices up faster than incomes.

Now we’ve reached the point in the conversation where the YIMBYs admit the program won’t help the people it was supposed to help but tell us not to worry because the effects will just trickle down. The problem with that approach is that very little actually does trickle down (most benefit gets booked as profit), making your approach an ineffective transmission mechanism for support to the middle class.

The other problem with your approach is that developers are much less likely to build while prices are falling, so when prices fall because of a supply shock, the effect is short lived. On top of that, your approach relies on having a supply shock to begin with, and cities that have experienced a supply shock did so only after rents went up way more than they have around here. Your approach is not a sustainable way to increase housing stock and it shouldn’t be a basis for policy.

I'm not even sure what you mean by "most benefit gets booked as profit." Yes, when someone sells a new or existing home, whoever previously owned the home will likely make more money than they originally spent on it. That isn't a bad thing.

Similarly, it isn't clear what "supply shock" you're alluding to. There's no chance of a supply shock under this policy, and I'm sure you know that.

Your previous proposal to the housing shortage was sprawl up 270. But have you ever looked at the prices of those homes? New construction will always be on the top end of prices for the location and size.

The new zoning rules aren't going to magically fix our problems overnight or even on their own. But that's not a reason to allow things to continue to get worse at the current pace.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suppose our personal finance math may differ, but two married people making a combined 140 a yr or so, I wouldnt feel comfortable with a 700k house. (thats on the low end by the way, the ones in Arlington ended up over 1M). But lets assume 700k here. You would need 140 for a down payment for an 80/20 mortgage.

Then you factor in property taxes, insurance, etc etc... no effing way two teachers or two nurses are swinging that.

Again-its a fairy tale story "we want affordable houses for teachers and nurses and cops!!" (then they build 700-1M triplexes, that none of those people will actually buy or be able to afford).

Just admit that.

New construction is always going to demand a premium. The issue isn't so much what the new units will cost, but what effect they will have on other units compared to maintaining the status quo.

Scarcity drives prices. More people competing for the same number of homes is going to keep driving prices up faster than incomes.

Now we’ve reached the point in the conversation where the YIMBYs admit the program won’t help the people it was supposed to help but tell us not to worry because the effects will just trickle down. The problem with that approach is that very little actually does trickle down (most benefit gets booked as profit), making your approach an ineffective transmission mechanism for support to the middle class.

The other problem with your approach is that developers are much less likely to build while prices are falling, so when prices fall because of a supply shock, the effect is short lived. On top of that, your approach relies on having a supply shock to begin with, and cities that have experienced a supply shock did so only after rents went up way more than they have around here. Your approach is not a sustainable way to increase housing stock and it shouldn’t be a basis for policy.

I'm not even sure what you mean by "most benefit gets booked as profit." Yes, when someone sells a new or existing home, whoever previously owned the home will likely make more money than they originally spent on it. That isn't a bad thing.

Similarly, it isn't clear what "supply shock" you're alluding to. There's no chance of a supply shock under this policy, and I'm sure you know that.

Your previous proposal to the housing shortage was sprawl up 270. But have you ever looked at the prices of those homes? New construction will always be on the top end of prices for the location and size.

The new zoning rules aren't going to magically fix our problems overnight or even on their own. But that's not a reason to allow things to continue to get worse at the current pace.

What I mean is this: When the government gives a developer an entitlement or a subsidy, the developer takes most of the entitlement or subsidy as profit. It doesn’t result in enough new housing to drive prices down (which is the alleged benefit for the middle class). Otherwise, you’ve totally undermined the sponsors’ alternative theory of the bill, which is that it will increase supply (a positive supply shock) and give pricing relief to consumers.

I never proposed building up 270. But what you said is important: New construction will be on the top end of the market for location and size. The land up 270 is cheaper. You can sell for lower prices and still make money up 270, which is why there’s been so much construction in Frederick.

What the YIMBYs have done is insist on the most type of expensive construction on the most expensive land, and many of them have insisted on this approach to the exclusion of building where land is cheaper. The housing crisis is you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suppose our personal finance math may differ, but two married people making a combined 140 a yr or so, I wouldnt feel comfortable with a 700k house. (thats on the low end by the way, the ones in Arlington ended up over 1M). But lets assume 700k here. You would need 140 for a down payment for an 80/20 mortgage.

Then you factor in property taxes, insurance, etc etc... no effing way two teachers or two nurses are swinging that.

Again-its a fairy tale story "we want affordable houses for teachers and nurses and cops!!" (then they build 700-1M triplexes, that none of those people will actually buy or be able to afford).

Just admit that.

New construction is always going to demand a premium. The issue isn't so much what the new units will cost, but what effect they will have on other units compared to maintaining the status quo.

Scarcity drives prices. More people competing for the same number of homes is going to keep driving prices up faster than incomes.

Now we’ve reached the point in the conversation where the YIMBYs admit the program won’t help the people it was supposed to help but tell us not to worry because the effects will just trickle down. The problem with that approach is that very little actually does trickle down (most benefit gets booked as profit), making your approach an ineffective transmission mechanism for support to the middle class.

The other problem with your approach is that developers are much less likely to build while prices are falling, so when prices fall because of a supply shock, the effect is short lived. On top of that, your approach relies on having a supply shock to begin with, and cities that have experienced a supply shock did so only after rents went up way more than they have around here. Your approach is not a sustainable way to increase housing stock and it shouldn’t be a basis for policy.

Housing supply is only relevant to them in that it creates their walkable 15 minute cities. They absolutely don’t care about affordability. It’s a ruse.