Arlington "missing middle"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's going to be a field day for developers. Can't wait for beauties like this to get built, except in townhouse form:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5449-20th-St-N-Arlington-VA-22205/12067525_zpid/?mmlb=g,0

I don't get it. If a developer tears down a nondescript brick ranch house built by a developer, and replaces it with an ugly one-unit new residential building, that's ok, but if a developer tears down a nondescript brick ranch house built by a developer, and replaces it with an ugly two-unit new residential building, that's bad? More developers will tear down more nondescript brick ranch houses built by developers, leading to more ugly new residential buildings of up to 4 (or 6) units? What, specifically, is the issue?

The issue - at its core - is that whiny, entitled homeowners are upset that they can't encase their neighborhood in amber.

Since you can't reason people out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, 'debates' on housing policy in Arlington are largely fruitless endeavors. All the facts in the world won't disabuse these fecklessly angry people of their notion that their cause is righteous and true.

No, the issue is whiny, entitled 20/30 somethings working at non profits think they have a “right to live anywhere they want.” I’d love to live in Santa Monica, but guess what? I can’t afford it.

Case in point. An angry homeowner decides to attack a strawman instead of engaging on the merits.

There aren’t any merits. Just responding in kind to you.

I completely agree that there is no merit to the arguments MMH opponents put forth, and it's refreshing to hear someone finally admit it. No need to be rude to me for describing reality, though.

Very mature. I would expect nothing less from a poor 30 year old that can’t afford a house in North Arlington, but is desperately hoping someone can put a thumb on the scale for them so they don’t have to work hard or save to afford a house. I can’t wait until Arlington turns into Alexandria with crappy, over crowded schools and limited nice neighborhoods.

More strawmen! Just what you need to prove to everyone that your policy preferences aren't entirely intellectually bankrupt.

Like I said: you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I seriously hope that deftly cutting down strawmen is cathartic for you, because to the rest of the world it just shows how sad, desperate, and feckless the crotchety chicken littles of Arlington truly are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about as a thought experiment we see if the net effect of this is to raise or lower the price of houses in Arlington? My bet is on raising. Tearing down a 900K house and building three 1.1 million townhomes does not solve an affordability crisis. Plus the price of land just jumped considerably.

Also for fun, will this make Arlington more or less diverse? My bet is on less.

Oh sure, it is well known that when you increase the supply of something, the price goes up.

Wait, what?

What you are missing is the old Arlington real estate market is now dead. Every single lot in Arlington just got a lot more $$$. Before you could build one house. Now you can build 6. Some lots will now be worth double what they were before. Wait and see. This is not going to make the market more affordable.

So the number of housing units that can be put on a lot will increase sixfold, while the price of the lot only doubles, but that won't make more units more affordable for more people? Huh.

Listen. Anything 4 and above is likely to be an apartment. The money to be made here is duplexes and townhomes which will sell on a unit basis. I did the math for you before, but I'll try again. Right now there is a lot in Lyon Park that sold for $900K. A developer is going to build three townhomes on it for $1.1 million each. (And make a killing, by the way, but that same lot will now sell for $1.5.) So you replace one unit that cost $900K with three units that cost $1.1 million. Cost per unit goes up. That's the math.

No, the math is the cost of a single McMansion on the lot, times the odds that the existing house would be turned into a McMansion under previous zoning. I don’t know why NIMBYs keep ignoring this. The status quo isn’t that every older house gets bought by a family who wants to live there. It’s that a hundred seventy older houses that could be candidates for missing middle, get turned into McMansions instead.

Yes we know why. When you continually state a falsehood after being demonstrated that the assertion is false, then the falsehood is a feature not a bug.

Just as the NIMBYs' overwrought fears about MMH are rooted in fantasy, so too is their political strength. They showed last Fall that they could only muster 30% of the vote for the anti-MMH candidate. Now in the Democratic primary they're hoping that they can squeeze through one of the anti-MMH people. Perhaps they'll get one even with ranked choice voting just because there are two seats up simultaneously. Perhaps.

But I'm guessing "no". The NIMBYs have a lot of land in Arlington (b/c SFH lots) but not a lot of people when all is said and done.

Audrey Clement is a local joke an an idiot to boot. And even at this moment, most of Arlington still has no idea what missing middle even is or what just happened. Stop pretending the last election was a referendum on this. It was not. The next one will be, though.

The Republicans would have raced to run a candidate if they thought they could have exploited this and won. But they didn’t.

Instead, the Republicans such as Cunningham and Roy are running in the Democratic primary. They’re hoping to get their people out in a low-turnout primary, betting that more, uh, “Democratic” Democrats get cocky and sit out the race.

The Peter Rousselot, John Vihstadt opposition doesn’t have anything but some fearful SFH owners. They can’t grow their base because they don’t have arguments or evidence that hold up. That’s why you keep hearing them getting corrected over and over and over.

Meanwhile the proponents have the evidence behind them, and they have a real positive benefit to show voters. Namely, the chance that more townhouses, triplexes, and other units will be constructed around the County. 2, 4, or 6 units occupying the same footprint as one SFH are going to be less expensive than that SFH. Because math.

Vihstadt works in housing finance. He understands this. Rousselot’s been around the block and of course understands this as well. But there just aren’t enough Trumpy types in Arlington to carry the day on MMH.

Poor Peter. Poor John. Still wandering in the wilderness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right at this moment, I truly hate Arlington. We chose to live here, raised a family here, have devoted so much time to this community. Between how they handled COVID and this, I am so mad. I could never live in a red state, but I am finding that it's pretty awful to live in the land of only blue.

You'll eventually realize that the concept you know of a red state is a myth, and you will gladly move.

LOL. PP from above. I grew up in a red state and the people there are crazy. I mean it when I say I could not go back. I was so smug and happy to live in blue Arlington when Trump got elected because at least people were sane here. Then COVID happened. And then I saw my nieces and nephews going to school while my kids stayed home. And now I see my neighborhood getting even more crowded, and I look at the house next door that is going to be a 6-plex soon. I literally fought DH to make him stay here and now the joke's on me, it was the wrong call.

Your kids have been back in school since at least fall 2021, right? How is your neighborhood “getting even more crowded?”

[Anonymous]

you voted for these morons. nice job guys, continue to sprawl outwards and repeat the same process over and over again. what a bunch of whiney idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about as a thought experiment we see if the net effect of this is to raise or lower the price of houses in Arlington? My bet is on raising. Tearing down a 900K house and building three 1.1 million townhomes does not solve an affordability crisis. Plus the price of land just jumped considerably.

Also for fun, will this make Arlington more or less diverse? My bet is on less.

Oh sure, it is well known that when you increase the supply of something, the price goes up.

Wait, what?

What you are missing is the old Arlington real estate market is now dead. Every single lot in Arlington just got a lot more $$$. Before you could build one house. Now you can build 6. Some lots will now be worth double what they were before. Wait and see. This is not going to make the market more affordable.

So the number of housing units that can be put on a lot will increase sixfold, while the price of the lot only doubles, but that won't make more units more affordable for more people? Huh.

Listen. Anything 4 and above is likely to be an apartment. The money to be made here is duplexes and townhomes which will sell on a unit basis. I did the math for you before, but I'll try again. Right now there is a lot in Lyon Park that sold for $900K. A developer is going to build three townhomes on it for $1.1 million each. (And make a killing, by the way, but that same lot will now sell for $1.5.) So you replace one unit that cost $900K with three units that cost $1.1 million. Cost per unit goes up. That's the math.

No, the math is the cost of a single McMansion on the lot, times the odds that the existing house would be turned into a McMansion under previous zoning. I don’t know why NIMBYs keep ignoring this. The status quo isn’t that every older house gets bought by a family who wants to live there. It’s that a hundred seventy older houses that could be candidates for missing middle, get turned into McMansions instead.

Yes we know why. When you continually state a falsehood after being demonstrated that the assertion is false, then the falsehood is a feature not a bug.

Just as the NIMBYs' overwrought fears about MMH are rooted in fantasy, so too is their political strength. They showed last Fall that they could only muster 30% of the vote for the anti-MMH candidate. Now in the Democratic primary they're hoping that they can squeeze through one of the anti-MMH people. Perhaps they'll get one even with ranked choice voting just because there are two seats up simultaneously. Perhaps.

But I'm guessing "no". The NIMBYs have a lot of land in Arlington (b/c SFH lots) but not a lot of people when all is said and done.

Because we allowed all the rental apartments to be built; they carpet bag in and now our future is in the hand of fickle 20 year olds who won’t stick around to deal with outcomes.

Arlington shouldn't have apartments that people can rent?

People who rent are "carpet baggers"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about as a thought experiment we see if the net effect of this is to raise or lower the price of houses in Arlington? My bet is on raising. Tearing down a 900K house and building three 1.1 million townhomes does not solve an affordability crisis. Plus the price of land just jumped considerably.

Also for fun, will this make Arlington more or less diverse? My bet is on less.

Oh sure, it is well known that when you increase the supply of something, the price goes up.

Wait, what?

Fool, dropping 100 units on the market tomorrow wouldn't drop prices 2%.

This isn't about supply. This is about broke f.u.c.ks wanting to live in N. Arlington on a pre school teacher's salaries.

In a county with 120,000 units, currently? That would indeed be unlikely.

Also, what is wrong with preschool teachers living in North Arlington? People in North Arlington have children who go to preschools. Where should the teachers for those preschools live?

Uhhhhh, they should live where they can afford to live[/b]. Pre school teachers don't have sufficient salary to qualify for jumbo mortgages.

Do you own islands in the Caribbean?

Why not?

Unlike the supply of islands in the Caribbean, the supply of housing in North Arlington is not finite. It is possible to increase the supply of housing in North Arlington. And the Arlington County Board of Supervisors just voted to make that possible. Hooray!

Hooray for your ignorance. You clearly don't know what 'finite' means.

It is not possible to increase the number of islands in the Caribbean. Therefore, the supply of islands in the Caribbean is finite.

It is possible to increase the number of housing units in North Arlington. Therefore, the supply of housing in North Arlington is not finite.

NP. Eventually you will run out of places to put new housing units. Thus .... finite.

It's possible to build multi-story buildings.

Infinitely?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about as a thought experiment we see if the net effect of this is to raise or lower the price of houses in Arlington? My bet is on raising. Tearing down a 900K house and building three 1.1 million townhomes does not solve an affordability crisis. Plus the price of land just jumped considerably.

Also for fun, will this make Arlington more or less diverse? My bet is on less.

Oh sure, it is well known that when you increase the supply of something, the price goes up.

Wait, what?

What you are missing is the old Arlington real estate market is now dead. Every single lot in Arlington just got a lot more $$$. Before you could build one house. Now you can build 6. Some lots will now be worth double what they were before. Wait and see. This is not going to make the market more affordable.

So the number of housing units that can be put on a lot will increase sixfold, while the price of the lot only doubles, but that won't make more units more affordable for more people? Huh.

Listen. Anything 4 and above is likely to be an apartment. The money to be made here is duplexes and townhomes which will sell on a unit basis. I did the math for you before, but I'll try again. Right now there is a lot in Lyon Park that sold for $900K. A developer is going to build three townhomes on it for $1.1 million each. (And make a killing, by the way, but that same lot will now sell for $1.5.) So you replace one unit that cost $900K with three units that cost $1.1 million. Cost per unit goes up. That's the math.

No, the math is the cost of a single McMansion on the lot, times the odds that the existing house would be turned into a McMansion under previous zoning. I don’t know why NIMBYs keep ignoring this. The status quo isn’t that every older house gets bought by a family who wants to live there. It’s that a hundred seventy older houses that could be candidates for missing middle, get turned into McMansions instead.

Yes we know why. When you continually state a falsehood after being demonstrated that the assertion is false, then the falsehood is a feature not a bug.

Just as the NIMBYs' overwrought fears about MMH are rooted in fantasy, so too is their political strength. They showed last Fall that they could only muster 30% of the vote for the anti-MMH candidate. Now in the Democratic primary they're hoping that they can squeeze through one of the anti-MMH people. Perhaps they'll get one even with ranked choice voting just because there are two seats up simultaneously. Perhaps.

But I'm guessing "no". The NIMBYs have a lot of land in Arlington (b/c SFH lots) but not a lot of people when all is said and done.

Audrey Clement is a local joke an an idiot to boot. And even at this moment, most of Arlington still has no idea what missing middle even is or what just happened. Stop pretending the last election was a referendum on this. It was not. The next one will be, though.

The Republicans would have raced to run a candidate if they thought they could have exploited this and won. But they didn’t.

Instead, the Republicans such as Cunningham and Roy are running in the Democratic primary. They’re hoping to get their people out in a low-turnout primary, betting that more, uh, “Democratic” Democrats get cocky and sit out the race.

The Peter Rousselot, John Vihstadt opposition doesn’t have anything but some fearful SFH owners. They can’t grow their base because they don’t have arguments or evidence that hold up. That’s why you keep hearing them getting corrected over and over and over.

Meanwhile the proponents have the evidence behind them, and they have a real positive benefit to show voters. Namely, the chance that more townhouses, triplexes, and other units will be constructed around the County. 2, 4, or 6 units occupying the same footprint as one SFH are going to be less expensive than that SFH. Because math.

Vihstadt works in housing finance. He understands this. Rousselot’s been around the block and of course understands this as well. But there just aren’t enough Trumpy types in Arlington to carry the day on MMH.

Poor Peter. Poor John. Still wandering in the wilderness.

I mean, sure, except for all of the parts where you are wrong.

If you have evidence that this de zoning works and doesn’t just make things worse, let’s see it. Seems that it’s all just housing Brawndo. Some of these reference the same MIT research, but I don’t have time to research academic articles for people that want to make policy with their feelings.

http://theadvocatecornell.com/2022/02/03/does-upzoning-work/

https://betterdwelling.com/broad-upzoning-makes-housing-less-affordable-and-doesnt-add-supply/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0042098020940602?journalCode=usja

https://48hills.org/2019/01/yimby-narrative-wrong/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about as a thought experiment we see if the net effect of this is to raise or lower the price of houses in Arlington? My bet is on raising. Tearing down a 900K house and building three 1.1 million townhomes does not solve an affordability crisis. Plus the price of land just jumped considerably.

Also for fun, will this make Arlington more or less diverse? My bet is on less.

Oh sure, it is well known that when you increase the supply of something, the price goes up.

Wait, what?

What you are missing is the old Arlington real estate market is now dead. Every single lot in Arlington just got a lot more $$$. Before you could build one house. Now you can build 6. Some lots will now be worth double what they were before. Wait and see. This is not going to make the market more affordable.

So the number of housing units that can be put on a lot will increase sixfold, while the price of the lot only doubles, but that won't make more units more affordable for more people? Huh.

Listen. Anything 4 and above is likely to be an apartment. The money to be made here is duplexes and townhomes which will sell on a unit basis. I did the math for you before, but I'll try again. Right now there is a lot in Lyon Park that sold for $900K. A developer is going to build three townhomes on it for $1.1 million each. (And make a killing, by the way, but that same lot will now sell for $1.5.) So you replace one unit that cost $900K with three units that cost $1.1 million. Cost per unit goes up. That's the math.

No, the math is the cost of a single McMansion on the lot, times the odds that the existing house would be turned into a McMansion under previous zoning. I don’t know why NIMBYs keep ignoring this. The status quo isn’t that every older house gets bought by a family who wants to live there. It’s that a hundred seventy older houses that could be candidates for missing middle, get turned into McMansions instead.

Exactly.

But I’d rather have a McMansion next to me than a 8-plex with all the loss of parking and additional school overcrowding that entails. I don’t understand the point you’re making…

Whether it's a massive McMansion or a massive multiple unit, they're both taking up space. Aesthetics is hardly a good argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about as a thought experiment we see if the net effect of this is to raise or lower the price of houses in Arlington? My bet is on raising. Tearing down a 900K house and building three 1.1 million townhomes does not solve an affordability crisis. Plus the price of land just jumped considerably.

Also for fun, will this make Arlington more or less diverse? My bet is on less.

Oh sure, it is well known that when you increase the supply of something, the price goes up.

Wait, what?

What you are missing is the old Arlington real estate market is now dead. Every single lot in Arlington just got a lot more $$$. Before you could build one house. Now you can build 6. Some lots will now be worth double what they were before. Wait and see. This is not going to make the market more affordable.

So the number of housing units that can be put on a lot will increase sixfold, while the price of the lot only doubles, but that won't make more units more affordable for more people? Huh.

Listen. Anything 4 and above is likely to be an apartment. The money to be made here is duplexes and townhomes which will sell on a unit basis. I did the math for you before, but I'll try again. Right now there is a lot in Lyon Park that sold for $900K. A developer is going to build three townhomes on it for $1.1 million each. (And make a killing, by the way, but that same lot will now sell for $1.5.) So you replace one unit that cost $900K with three units that cost $1.1 million. Cost per unit goes up. That's the math.

No, the math is the cost of a single McMansion on the lot, times the odds that the existing house would be turned into a McMansion under previous zoning. I don’t know why NIMBYs keep ignoring this. The status quo isn’t that every older house gets bought by a family who wants to live there. It’s that a hundred seventy older houses that could be candidates for missing middle, get turned into McMansions instead.

Exactly.

But I’d rather have a McMansion next to me than a 8-plex with all the loss of parking and additional school overcrowding that entails. I don’t understand the point you’re making…

Whether it's a massive McMansion or a massive multiple unit, they're both taking up space. Aesthetics is hardly a good argument.

PP objects to having more neighbors. Or possibly just neighbors with more cars, it's not clear. It does seem like a lot of the objections are really about more cars/less (public street) parking, but not all of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right at this moment, I truly hate Arlington. We chose to live here, raised a family here, have devoted so much time to this community. Between how they handled COVID and this, I am so mad. I could never live in a red state, but I am finding that it's pretty awful to live in the land of only blue.

You'll eventually realize that the concept you know of a red state is a myth, and you will gladly move.

LOL. PP from above. I grew up in a red state and the people there are crazy. I mean it when I say I could not go back. I was so smug and happy to live in blue Arlington when Trump got elected because at least people were sane here. Then COVID happened. And then I saw my nieces and nephews going to school while my kids stayed home. And now I see my neighborhood getting even more crowded, and I look at the house next door that is going to be a 6-plex soon. I literally fought DH to make him stay here and now the joke's on me, it was the wrong call.

Your kids have been back in school since at least fall 2021, right? How is your neighborhood “getting even more crowded?”

Spring 2021

[Anonymous]

It's going to make a mess of Arlington. Virtually anyone with an 8000 square foot lot can start redeveloping a single house into four $1.2 million townhouses. Does nothing for affordable housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's going to make a mess of Arlington. Virtually anyone with an 8000 square foot lot can start redeveloping a single house into four $1.2 million townhouses. Does nothing for affordable housing.

Good news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's going to make a mess of Arlington. Virtually anyone with an 8000 square foot lot can start redeveloping a single house into four $1.2 million townhouses. Does nothing for affordable housing.

Can you do math? Is a 2 million single family home is more or less expensive than a 1.2 million townhouse? is 2 more than 1?

Hm....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's going to be a field day for developers. Can't wait for beauties like this to get built, except in townhouse form:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5449-20th-St-N-Arlington-VA-22205/12067525_zpid/?mmlb=g,0

That's a pop top. The original brick rambler is the bottom half of the building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC, especially Ward 3, is next. The Smart Growth lobby is already lobbying the Office of Planning and the Council. "High opportunity" areas will mean that single family neighborhoods will be transformed.

That's great news!

All the white people can continue to live in Ward 3 and segregate themselves from the poors