This is a ridiculous response… move to Europe lol. Property rights are not unlimited because their are costs incurred by the larger community. New housing units requires schools capacity, generate traffic, use local government services, impact the water and air pollution, create noise. Zoning exists to protect the property rights (use and enjoyment) nearby of properties. This logic of “property rights” meaning I can do absolutely whatever I want, is a very simplistic understanding of the world that doesn’t mesh with reality. Use of an individual property incurs costs to the neighbors and the local government, so there is a legitimate basis to regulate them. |
Spoken like a true Pinko. |
Easy to fix: charge appropriate property, impact, and transfer taxes. |
None of this makes the adjacent property owners whole for impairing the use an enjoyment of their own property. The county also has no interest in collecting sufficient transfer and impact taxes to offset the cost of providing services for new development. The county has consistently introduced waivers of impact fees and reductions in property taxes allowing developers to shirk their responsibility to pay for negative externalities. |
I like your cold war era vocab, I have not heard that one if a few decades. Alright well under your logic, people should be allowed to put an open air industrial waste facility next to a school or a residential neighborhood because of "property rights". This is not a reasonable interpretation of property rights that most people would agree with. Increasing the zoned density of existing communities by 4-8x throughout the entire county is also not considered a reasonable interpretation of property rights by most people. |
I agree with you that the "property rights" argument (at least without an awful lot of nuance) is unpersuasive in this argument. However, less persuasive is arguments about what "most people" want. There is no evidence to support that. The best you can say is that you assume most people think the way you think, or that "Most people you have talked to have told you they agree with your view" which itself is also not great evidence that they actually do agree with you... |
That is true, we do not know that, thank you for acknowledging. This is why any implementation of this plan should wait until residents have a chance to vote on it, which is really the only reliable way to determine support. The council is, of course, free to refine the plans in the meantime and then present a final plan to be put to vote. |
What criteria would you use to determine what decisions the Council has the power to make should be put to a vote of all residents? |
DP. How about when there are enough signatures on a petition in opposition prior to legislation being passed for there to have been a ballot initiative? If there are enough, but if the Council would be utilizing a timeline that did not allow such an initiative to be organized/placed on the ballot between when the scope of a proposal was made broadly known to the populace and when the Council would be considering/passing the associated legislation, then the Council should hold off (or make the legislation tentative/easily reversible, which, given the great uncertainty of effect in this case, they should be doing anyway). |
MOCO homeowners impacted will be smart to create covenants (like yesterday) before the council approves it. And yes the council will approve it, and smugly condemn neighborhoods who have covenants. |
Was there a covenant adopted yesterday, or was it the conversation yesterday about covenants to which you were referring? Agree that this is sailing towards passage, and likely without meaningful change from the Planning report or effective guardrails. The rich detached SFH neighborhoods are the ones far more likely to have or establish the suggested covenants. The Council may verbally condemn them, but the impact of their action will be condemning the less wealthy detached SFH neighborhoods to bear the brunt of the additional density, and those are, typically, already less well served by public facilities (e.g , school capacity issues). Those areas are far less likely to have protective covenants (or the protection of municipal zoning authority, like Rockville or Gaithersburg, or historic designation, like wealthy parts of Takoma Park), and they are far more concentrated to the east/in the Silver Spring area. Again, bravo County Council/Planning for setting up even greater economic disparity! ![]() |
^you would have cheered for Jim Crow laws back in 1920s. You’re on the wrong side of history. |
Brilliant card play, there. Totally nuanced to the multi-faceted situation and completely covers the many concerns expressed. Definitely not a strawman mischaracterization or anything. ![]() |
I say this as an ardent democrat but the only solution is to vote these morons out of office. I will gladly vote for any republican running on the local tickets.
Moco is digging its own grave for no reason |
The YIMBYs would have gone, “well, aw shucks, we voted for them, it’s the will of the people! We have to just accept their terrible policies.” At least that’s what they say whenever someone brings up policies implemented by the council. We voted for them and now we have to accept the consequences, no matter how bad the policy! So, which is it, we can fight bad policies and force votes, or we can’t? |