What's the deal with Developers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Developers (at least where I live) prioritize denisity without thought toward overcrowding schools, utilities, services, parking, traffic etc.

I'm in Alexandria and that is certainly the case here but shouldn't that be the city government's job to think about all those things? It doesn't happen here and we are headed for disaster.

Not even a little because of all the back room dealing that goes on. Corruption to the very core.

For sure. It's pretty well known in D circles why the mayor and council and cronies push this. All while living in large single family homes with large (for Alexandria) yards.

You know all those large single family homes were planned and built by developers.

80 years ago...

The is point the vast majority of housing in this country was/is done by developers. Some you may like some you may not like. It was done 80 years age, 10 years ago, last year and is continuing today. Each has its own history from Greenbelt, Lake Barcroft, the Kentlands, Crescendo at City Ridge, etc.

Actually Alexandria has city planning. They did growth studies and projections. They developed a long term plan to meet the needs of Alexandria. Their plan was to put a light rail corridor in, increase the zone density around light rail, charge higher taxes, have the developers pay for infrastructure improvements and build out services(schools, Sport complexes, etc). Alexandria residents said no. So Alexandria got what they wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Developers (at least where I live) prioritize denisity without thought toward overcrowding schools, utilities, services, parking, traffic etc.

I'm in Alexandria and that is certainly the case here but shouldn't that be the city government's job to think about all those things? It doesn't happen here and we are headed for disaster.

Not even a little because of all the back room dealing that goes on. Corruption to the very core.

For sure. It's pretty well known in D circles why the mayor and council and cronies push this. All while living in large single family homes with large (for Alexandria) yards.

You know all those large single family homes were planned and built by developers.

Who engaged in exclusionary and anti-competitive practices. Yes, let’s celebrate their legacy and pretend like they’ve reformed and are now driven by altruism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Explain to me why developers are bad. I see this take so much whether it's in DC with the Mayor, Montgomery County or any other place. What is it about the developers that makes them awful people?

It's not that they are intrinsically bad. Developers are necessary. But, they are typically entirely profit motivted, meaning they view every deal as the maximum amount of cash they can get per square foot. Thus, left to their own devices they would prioritize building luxury apartments, luxury office spaces and high end retail. They don't care as much about green spaces, or families, young working people, children, and affordable establishments. They also don't care about the impacts on infrastructure, traffic, police or other services, they leave taxpayers holding the bag. It's typically the communities that have to keep them in check and push for those things.

"Luxury apartments" just means new market-rate apartments. All new market-rate apartments have the meaningless term "luxury" slapped on them.

Using the term "market rate" is a joke - you can only afford them if you're part of the top 5-10%

Supply/demand dictates market price. If most people are outpriced and management companies run out of top 5% looking and being able to afford their rentals, then they drop the price or risk high vacancy rates.

The problem is too many developers prefer the latter because they own a lot of units and aren’t eager to devalue them. Have you noticed that new housing production in this area pretty closely tracks population growth in high income brackets but is well short of overall population growth? That’s not an accident. It means developers capture additional revenue without devaluing their existing product. It’s totally rational behavior and each of us would run our businesses the same way if we could. But it also means that the mythical filtering never happens and there’s not new housing to accommodate population increases in lower income brackets.

We should make it easy to build housing for high earners because it’s good to have more high earners who pay a lot of taxes and don’t use public services. But we shouldn’t pretend that building those units will solve the affordability crisis at lower income levels. Anyone who makes that claim isn’t being honest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Explain to me why developers are bad. I see this take so much whether it's in DC with the Mayor, Montgomery County or any other place. What is it about the developers that makes them awful people?

It's not that they are intrinsically bad. Developers are necessary. But, they are typically entirely profit motivted, meaning they view every deal as the maximum amount of cash they can get per square foot. Thus, left to their own devices they would prioritize building luxury apartments, luxury office spaces and high end retail. They don't care as much about green spaces, or families, young working people, children, and affordable establishments. They also don't care about the impacts on infrastructure, traffic, police or other services, they leave taxpayers holding the bag. It's typically the communities that have to keep them in check and push for those things.

"Luxury apartments" just means new market-rate apartments. All new market-rate apartments have the meaningless term "luxury" slapped on them.

Using the term "market rate" is a joke - you can only afford them if you're part of the top 5-10%

Supply/demand dictates market price. If most people are outpriced and management companies run out of top 5% looking and being able to afford their rentals, then they drop the price or risk high vacancy rates.

Housing is not corn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Explain to me why developers are bad. I see this take so much whether it's in DC with the Mayor, Montgomery County or any other place. What is it about the developers that makes them awful people?

It's not that they are intrinsically bad. Developers are necessary. But, they are typically entirely profit motivted, meaning they view every deal as the maximum amount of cash they can get per square foot. Thus, left to their own devices they would prioritize building luxury apartments, luxury office spaces and high end retail. They don't care as much about green spaces, or families, young working people, children, and affordable establishments. They also don't care about the impacts on infrastructure, traffic, police or other services, they leave taxpayers holding the bag. It's typically the communities that have to keep them in check and push for those things.

"Luxury apartments" just means new market-rate apartments. All new market-rate apartments have the meaningless term "luxury" slapped on them.

Using the term "market rate" is a joke - you can only afford them if you're part of the top 5-10%

Supply/demand dictates market price. If most people are outpriced and management companies run out of top 5% looking and being able to afford their rentals, then they drop the price or risk high vacancy rates.

Housing is not corn.

It is when you didn't make it past econ 101.