MoCo Planning Board Meeting - Upzoning
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Anonymous
The folks buying into a 3-4 unit building are not likely to be paying much in income taxes. They easily could be costing the County money, particularly if they have children. The owner of that former SFH likely pays income taxes, as that owner is likely in income bracket. Perhaps, property taxes from that 3-4 unit building are higher than from the former SFH, but I doubt the County makes a profit from those higher property taxes given the increased services that need to be provided. |
Anonymous
The ignored story here is that the disasters that will occur with the families housed in these smaller complexes. |
Anonymous
Density also means less linear feet of county roads, utilities, etc needed. |
Anonymous
Yes you will get more tax revenue overall than a SFH. However, county expenses go up too. Look at the math from the previous poster. Property taxes from a new quadplex unit likely won’t even cover half of money these residents cost the county directly. You are missing the point. The county is worse off financially if the residents of new housing units pay less in taxes than the cost for MOCO to provide local services for those residents. More tax revenues can be a bad thing if expenses increase disproportionately. |
Anonymous
Not really. Upzoning just means more housing for childless adults and a lot less housing for people with kids, and a whole lot less housing for larger families. What's the point of pushing out people with multiple kids? That seems like a stupid goal. |
Anonymous
Love how those who've been arguing for years that upzoning is the answer to rising housing costs have admitted that was *complete* bullshit. |
Anonymous
You need to get together with the poster who opposes housing for for families because additional kids in school are a net negative for tax revenue. And, I guess, the goal of county policies should be to maximize tax revenue, or something. |
Anonymous
That actually is the market at work. |
Anonymous
Yes that is true, but around 85% of the MOCO's operating budget is attributable to expenses that largely scale with population size. Only around 15% of the county's operating budget is due to things like (bond servicing and transportation, etc) where expenses might see significant economies of scale. If quadplex residents are half as costly for this portion of county expenditures that only saves MOCO around $474 per quadplex resident each year. The hypothetical cost savings (directly attributable to MOCO) from these efficiencies would mean that the quadplex costs the county $65,490 each year(rather than 70,646 in the previous example). In the most optimistic scenario, the property tax revenue from a quadplex ($28,750-32,000) will fall short by $33,000. Property taxes only cover around half of the expenses from the new quadplex residents. Income and sales taxes will not fully cover the rest and the county will lose money on overage for each additional plex unit. |
Anonymous
Funny how it’s totally cool for a single adult to live in a 1000 square foot apartment but it’s really selfish for a family of five to live in a 1500 square foot house |
Anonymous
Who has said this, and where and when did they say it? Please be specific. |
Anonymous
The county's goal is not to maximize tax revenue, but it would be foolish to ignore the revenue impacts of development decisions. The county cannot function without money to cover basic expenses. It is fiscally unsustainable if MOCO continues on the current path of pursuing development that is net revenue negative. Property taxes will need to go up even more in the near future if we do this. There is also the risk of a fiscal death spiral where high income residents leave and (which requires the county to raise taxes even more) then the ensuing tax increases encourage even more residents to leave again. It becomes a vicious cycle. |
Anonymous
Montgomery County will adopt upzoning and when that doesn’t work the YIMBYs will bring more ineffective proposals to the table instead of admitting they got it wrong. |
Anonymous
DP. I disagree, in a way. Housing is more important than schools in the same way that food is more important than housing. Kind of a hierarchy of needs thing. However, just as the need for housing might eclipse the preference for a particular cuisine or brand of food where other food is available, the need for adequate public facilities such as schools might be more important than the preference for additional housing of a particular type where other housing (hi-rise instead of triplex, townhouse a modest distance away, rental instead of a purchase, etc.) is available. There's a calculus to it, to be sure, depending on where on the spectrum of need and preference these might fall. There is enough housing stock available and enough properties on which such housing could be built with current zoning that the school overcrowding factor is the more pressing element in many localities, especially closer in, where the policy change is aimed. It also is far less flexible than housing inventory, taking greater lead times to address, and it is directly negatively impacted by the even greater housing inventory envisioned in the upzoning under consideration. The same may well be the case for other essential public services. Montgomery Planning and the County Council should be taking a more holistic and community/resident-inclusive approach. |
Anonymous
lol what. speculation is not "the market at work". especially not with a building. you're not a finance person are you? |