MOCO - County Wide Upzoning, Everywhere

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

That's incorrect, though. At most, the proposed zoning changes would eliminate exclusively single-family zoning in many parts of Montgomery County. Don't you think the flyer should provide information that is correct? You wouldn't want to purvey misinformation.

That is factually accurate. Eliminating single family zoning effectively eliminates single family neighborhoods. The only neighborhood that will be spared are covered by HOAS or covenants.

My understanding is that the HOAs and covenants will be overridden. This is one part that is clearly very unclear.

They probably don't have the legal authority to revoke covenants that were legally valid when established. This would definitely be a legal battle and I suspect the federal courts would rule against the county. They might be able to ban new covenants though.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

That's incorrect, though. At most, the proposed zoning changes would eliminate exclusively single-family zoning in many parts of Montgomery County. Don't you think the flyer should provide information that is correct? You wouldn't want to purvey misinformation.

That is factually accurate. Eliminating single family zoning effectively eliminates single family neighborhoods. The only neighborhood that will be spared are covered by HOAS or covenants.

My understanding is that the HOAs and covenants will be overridden. This is one part that is clearly very unclear.

They probably don't have the legal authority to revoke covenants that were legally valid when established. This would definitely be a legal battle and I suspect the federal courts would rule against the county. They might be able to ban new covenants though.

So if you want to establish a covenants to protect your neighborhood, now is the time to do it. Washington state make it illegal to establish new protective covenants that ban multifamily housing. However, this law grandfathered old covenants because they were concerned it wouldn't be legal to overturn previous established ones.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

That's incorrect, though. At most, the proposed zoning changes would eliminate exclusively single-family zoning in many parts of Montgomery County. Don't you think the flyer should provide information that is correct? You wouldn't want to purvey misinformation.

That is factually accurate. Eliminating single family zoning effectively eliminates single family neighborhoods. The only neighborhood that will be spared are covered by HOAS or covenants.

My understanding is that the HOAs and covenants will be overridden. This is one part that is clearly very unclear.

They probably don't have the legal authority to revoke covenants that were legally valid when established. This would definitely be a legal battle and I suspect the federal courts would rule against the county. They might be able to ban new covenants though.

So if you want to establish a covenants to protect your neighborhood, now is the time to do it. Washington state make it illegal to establish new protective covenants that ban multifamily housing. However, this law grandfathered old covenants because they were concerned it wouldn't be legal to overturn previous established ones.

Our SFH HOA has an architectural review committee that can prevent homeowners from doing anything out of character in the neighborhood. I believe this would prevent a developer from buying a SFH and turning it into a 4 plex.

Don't be so sure. Some of these developments may override certain types of local restrictions/reviews.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

Emphasize with bullet points in flyer, that it will worsen traffic, increase school overcrowding, create parking issues for residents, etc.

Here is a image picture for your flyer to get message across that it will be disastrous.
https://flic.kr/p/2pZpdb7

All of the houses have the wrong number of fingers.

Also, whoever used AI to make that image missed an opportunity to blame bike lanes. I hope they do better next time.

And yet shockingly realistic compared to the YIMBY fanfic presented to the council. They mostly just need to photoshop in a bunch of empty buses and cars sitting in traffic.

If that's what you think, no wonder you are not effective at persuading elected officials to your point of view.

In combination with the state level zoning changes. It’s definitely possible to that there will be incompatible development like this.

"incompatible" meaning what?

Means a density that
does not fit with the infrastructure capacity of the community or creates a significant burden on nearby properties. Eg. A 50ft tall 19 unit apartment building, with insufficient setbacks that significantly reduce the sunlight to an adjacent property and creates basement flooding due to increase impervious surfaces and run off. If this development creates a significant impact on the existing neighbors use of the adjacent single story bungalow, it is incompatible.

Since when does a building have a right to not be shaded by an adjacent building?

If a building causes basement flooding in an adjacent building, that's not incompatibility, that's grounds for a civil suit for damages.

Access to sunlight is very important for both physical and mental health. You are basically saying that people should be able to do whatever the hell they want regardless if of how much it harms anyone else. Under your logic, people should people to turn their neighbors house into a practically windowless basement because people have absolute property rights.

If moving into a SFH-zoned neighborhood, people had a reasonable expectation that a new development would not entirely block their sun like this. People's homes for the most part are their single largest investment.

The County Council is not proposing to change the zoning code to "do whatever the hell you want."

If people had an expectation that the zoning code would never change, then that was not a reasonable expectation.

As for blocking the sun, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're having a heat wave. The climate is warming. Shade is a good thing, not a bad thing.

So your rebuttal to this concern is that who care about having natural light because ... climate change. That is the most ridiculous YIMBY response to community concerns I have seen in a while.

Climate change is happening, whether or not you think it's a ridiculous response. Natural light is good, but shade is also good.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

Emphasize with bullet points in flyer, that it will worsen traffic, increase school overcrowding, create parking issues for residents, etc.

Here is a image picture for your flyer to get message across that it will be disastrous.
https://flic.kr/p/2pZpdb7

All of the houses have the wrong number of fingers.

Also, whoever used AI to make that image missed an opportunity to blame bike lanes. I hope they do better next time.

And yet shockingly realistic compared to the YIMBY fanfic presented to the council. They mostly just need to photoshop in a bunch of empty buses and cars sitting in traffic.

If that's what you think, no wonder you are not effective at persuading elected officials to your point of view.

In combination with the state level zoning changes. It’s definitely possible to that there will be incompatible development like this.

"incompatible" meaning what?

Means a density that
does not fit with the infrastructure capacity of the community or creates a significant burden on nearby properties. Eg. A 50ft tall 19 unit apartment building, with insufficient setbacks that significantly reduce the sunlight to an adjacent property and creates basement flooding due to increase impervious surfaces and run off. If this development creates a significant impact on the existing neighbors use of the adjacent single story bungalow, it is incompatible.

Since when does a building have a right to not be shaded by an adjacent building?

If a building causes basement flooding in an adjacent building, that's not incompatibility, that's grounds for a civil suit for damages.

Access to sunlight is very important for both physical and mental health. You are basically saying that people should be able to do whatever the hell they want regardless if of how much it harms anyone else. Under your logic, people should people to turn their neighbors house into a practically windowless basement because people have absolute property rights.

If moving into a SFH-zoned neighborhood, people had a reasonable expectation that a new development would not entirely block their sun like this. People's homes for the most part are their single largest investment.

The County Council is not proposing to change the zoning code to "do whatever the hell you want."

If people had an expectation that the zoning code would never change, then that was not a reasonable expectation.

As for blocking the sun, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're having a heat wave. The climate is warming. Shade is a good thing, not a bad thing.

So your rebuttal to this concern is that who care about having natural light because ... climate change. That is the most ridiculous YIMBY response to community concerns I have seen in a while.

Climate change is happening, whether or not you think it's a ridiculous response. Natural light is good, but shade is also good.

I didn't say climate change is no happening. All I said was sunlight is important to public health and it inflicts real harm on neighbors if you significantly reduce their access to sunlight due to your giant building that blocks it,

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

Emphasize with bullet points in flyer, that it will worsen traffic, increase school overcrowding, create parking issues for residents, etc.

Here is a image picture for your flyer to get message across that it will be disastrous.
https://flic.kr/p/2pZpdb7

All of the houses have the wrong number of fingers.

Also, whoever used AI to make that image missed an opportunity to blame bike lanes. I hope they do better next time.

And yet shockingly realistic compared to the YIMBY fanfic presented to the council. They mostly just need to photoshop in a bunch of empty buses and cars sitting in traffic.

If that's what you think, no wonder you are not effective at persuading elected officials to your point of view.

In combination with the state level zoning changes. It’s definitely possible to that there will be incompatible development like this.

"incompatible" meaning what?

Means a density that
does not fit with the infrastructure capacity of the community or creates a significant burden on nearby properties. Eg. A 50ft tall 19 unit apartment building, with insufficient setbacks that significantly reduce the sunlight to an adjacent property and creates basement flooding due to increase impervious surfaces and run off. If this development creates a significant impact on the existing neighbors use of the adjacent single story bungalow, it is incompatible.

Since when does a building have a right to not be shaded by an adjacent building?

If a building causes basement flooding in an adjacent building, that's not incompatibility, that's grounds for a civil suit for damages.

Access to sunlight is very important for both physical and mental health. You are basically saying that people should be able to do whatever the hell they want regardless if of how much it harms anyone else. Under your logic, people should people to turn their neighbors house into a practically windowless basement because people have absolute property rights.

If moving into a SFH-zoned neighborhood, people had a reasonable expectation that a new development would not entirely block their sun like this. People's homes for the most part are their single largest investment.

The County Council is not proposing to change the zoning code to "do whatever the hell you want."

If people had an expectation that the zoning code would never change, then that was not a reasonable expectation.

As for blocking the sun, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're having a heat wave. The climate is warming. Shade is a good thing, not a bad thing.

So your rebuttal to this concern is that who care about having natural light because ... climate change. That is the most ridiculous YIMBY response to community concerns I have seen in a while.

Climate change is happening, whether or not you think it's a ridiculous response. Natural light is good, but shade is also good.

I didn't say climate change is no happening. All I said was sunlight is important to public health and it inflicts real harm on neighbors if you significantly reduce their access to sunlight due to your giant building that blocks it,

Maybe? Or maybe it actually benefits them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

My neighbors (some blindly liberal) won't care about any of this. What they will care about is changes to storm drainage, water runoff rules, lot coverage, height restrictions, historic preservation, and tree preservation. Are these all planned to be overridden by this policy, or do we not know?

Rezoning to allow duplexes/triplexes/fourplexes will not change the regulations about stormwater runoff, historic preservation, or trees, because these things cannot be changed through changes to the zoning code. In addition, rezoning to allow duplexes/triplexes/fourplexes by itself will not change the regulations about height, setbacks, or lot coverage, although these things can be changed through changes to the zoning code.

The county literally said they are waving setback and lot coverage requirements. They also mentioned during the meeting yesterday, that zoning codes are currently silent on triplex and quadplex units. This means that they will have to write new codes for it and there is no reason to believe that MOCO can be trusted to enforce the same standards on the plex units. Also the recent state changes in law create a loophole for by-right waivers of development standards. Once single family zoning is eliminated the state laws that override local zoning authority will apply to the entire county!!

Can you point to where they said this? The document itself says that they will be retained. I haven't been able to find a recording of the meeting yesterday, but I'm willing to watch all of it to find this statement. I'm skeptical.

They will not be retained, multiple locations in the report suggest otherwise. Page 4 of the report
Development Standards: The Planning Board recommends a series of development standards for small scale attainable housing that generally follows the development standards for detached houses. The Board further recommends that:
o Substandard-sized lots that currently allow single-family detached homes should not have restrictions placed on them prohibiting duplexes, triplexes, or quadplexes. This means they will waive setbacks and lot coverage requirements for undersized lots. The r200 zoning district has 72% undersized lots, so setbacks will no longer apply to most properties if they build plex units.

They are suggesting that the development standards won't apply if it prevents people from constructing a multiplex unit.

I don't think that is a reasonable read of those two things at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

Emphasize with bullet points in flyer, that it will worsen traffic, increase school overcrowding, create parking issues for residents, etc.

Here is a image picture for your flyer to get message across that it will be disastrous.
https://flic.kr/p/2pZpdb7

All of the houses have the wrong number of fingers.

Also, whoever used AI to make that image missed an opportunity to blame bike lanes. I hope they do better next time.

And yet shockingly realistic compared to the YIMBY fanfic presented to the council. They mostly just need to photoshop in a bunch of empty buses and cars sitting in traffic.

If that's what you think, no wonder you are not effective at persuading elected officials to your point of view.

In combination with the state level zoning changes. It’s definitely possible to that there will be incompatible development like this.

"incompatible" meaning what?

Means a density that
does not fit with the infrastructure capacity of the community or creates a significant burden on nearby properties. Eg. A 50ft tall 19 unit apartment building, with insufficient setbacks that significantly reduce the sunlight to an adjacent property and creates basement flooding due to increase impervious surfaces and run off. If this development creates a significant impact on the existing neighbors use of the adjacent single story bungalow, it is incompatible.

Since when does a building have a right to not be shaded by an adjacent building?

If a building causes basement flooding in an adjacent building, that's not incompatibility, that's grounds for a civil suit for damages.

Access to sunlight is very important for both physical and mental health. You are basically saying that people should be able to do whatever the hell they want regardless if of how much it harms anyone else. Under your logic, people should people to turn their neighbors house into a practically windowless basement because people have absolute property rights.

If moving into a SFH-zoned neighborhood, people had a reasonable expectation that a new development would not entirely block their sun like this. People's homes for the most part are their single largest investment.

The County Council is not proposing to change the zoning code to "do whatever the hell you want."

If people had an expectation that the zoning code would never change, then that was not a reasonable expectation.

As for blocking the sun, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're having a heat wave. The climate is warming. Shade is a good thing, not a bad thing.

So your rebuttal to this concern is that who care about having natural light because ... climate change. That is the most ridiculous YIMBY response to community concerns I have seen in a while.

Climate change is happening, whether or not you think it's a ridiculous response. Natural light is good, but shade is also good.

I didn't say climate change is no happening. All I said was sunlight is important to public health and it inflicts real harm on neighbors if you significantly reduce their access to sunlight due to your giant building that blocks it,

Maybe? Or maybe it actually benefits them.

^^^Also, speaking of so-called giant buildings, how big do you think a fourplex is? Chances are, it's smaller than any "single-family" McMansion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who is making money off this and who is pushing this through at such a slam dunk pace?

The first sentence of the report indicates that this process started over three years ago in March 2021.
It also indicates that it will take another year or so before anything is effective.

[Anonymous]

This is happening in Alexandria also.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

My neighbors (some blindly liberal) won't care about any of this. What they will care about is changes to storm drainage, water runoff rules, lot coverage, height restrictions, historic preservation, and tree preservation. Are these all planned to be overridden by this policy, or do we not know?

Rezoning to allow duplexes/triplexes/fourplexes will not change the regulations about stormwater runoff, historic preservation, or trees, because these things cannot be changed through changes to the zoning code. In addition, rezoning to allow duplexes/triplexes/fourplexes by itself will not change the regulations about height, setbacks, or lot coverage, although these things can be changed through changes to the zoning code.

The county literally said they are waving setback and lot coverage requirements. They also mentioned during the meeting yesterday, that zoning codes are currently silent on triplex and quadplex units. This means that they will have to write new codes for it and there is no reason to believe that MOCO can be trusted to enforce the same standards on the plex units. Also the recent state changes in law create a loophole for by-right waivers of development standards. Once single family zoning is eliminated the state laws that override local zoning authority will apply to the entire county!!

Can you point to where they said this? The document itself says that they will be retained. I haven't been able to find a recording of the meeting yesterday, but I'm willing to watch all of it to find this statement. I'm skeptical.

They will not be retained, multiple locations in the report suggest otherwise. Page 4 of the report
Development Standards: The Planning Board recommends a series of development standards for small scale attainable housing that generally follows the development standards for detached houses. The Board further recommends that:
o Substandard-sized lots that currently allow single-family detached homes should not have restrictions placed on them prohibiting duplexes, triplexes, or quadplexes. This means they will waive setbacks and lot coverage requirements for undersized lots. The r200 zoning district has 72% undersized lots, so setbacks will no longer apply to most properties if they build plex units.

They are suggesting that the development standards won't apply if it prevents people from constructing a multiplex unit.

I don't think that is a reasonable read of those two things at all.

Development standards includes setback requirements and lot coverage requirements. Should not interfere indicates that planning office (which will write the administrative standards for the by-right zoning ordinance) does not want development of mulitplex units to be prevented due to setbacks or lot coverage requirements. If the standards are not waived, many if not most of these lots will be unable accommodate multifamily units to setback and lot coverage rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is happening in Alexandria also.

See you can't trust these ideological zealots. They will use the administrative process to create a backdoor by-right waiver of development standards once the county gives them legal authority to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who is making money off this and who is pushing this through at such a slam dunk pace?

The first sentence of the report indicates that this process started over three years ago in March 2021.
It also indicates that it will take another year or so before anything is effective.

With no details to be able to evaluate it appropriately, as evidenced by the debate on this thread of what this will actually entail.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This just sounds like a free for all chaotic mess not a well planned out area such as Reston Town Center. Who are the council members involved and ok with this? It feels like a bait and switch. I’d say the majority of my neighborhood is unaware of what is on the horizon.

Hand out flyers to all the homes in your neighborhood. Put them on the porch.

The actual details are sufficiently unclear to actually make a flyer. Is this intentional?

Of course it is.

You can still make a flyer to try to get the point across why it's a bad idea to make people upset about it. Title: " Proposed Zoning Changes Will Eliminate Single Family Neighborhoods in MOCO".
County is planning on pushing through significant zoning changes that will increase the zoned density of out neighborhood by 4x. ..... Please contact the planning commission and and our county supervisor to voice your opposition to these proposed zoning changes... List emails for people to send complaints to and provide a link with an email template for people to copy.

Emphasize with bullet points in flyer, that it will worsen traffic, increase school overcrowding, create parking issues for residents, etc.

Here is a image picture for your flyer to get message across that it will be disastrous.
https://flic.kr/p/2pZpdb7

All of the houses have the wrong number of fingers.

Also, whoever used AI to make that image missed an opportunity to blame bike lanes. I hope they do better next time.

And yet shockingly realistic compared to the YIMBY fanfic presented to the council. They mostly just need to photoshop in a bunch of empty buses and cars sitting in traffic.

If that's what you think, no wonder you are not effective at persuading elected officials to your point of view.

In combination with the state level zoning changes. It’s definitely possible to that there will be incompatible development like this.

"incompatible" meaning what?

Means a density that
does not fit with the infrastructure capacity of the community or creates a significant burden on nearby properties. Eg. A 50ft tall 19 unit apartment building, with insufficient setbacks that significantly reduce the sunlight to an adjacent property and creates basement flooding due to increase impervious surfaces and run off. If this development creates a significant impact on the existing neighbors use of the adjacent single story bungalow, it is incompatible.

Since when does a building have a right to not be shaded by an adjacent building?

If a building causes basement flooding in an adjacent building, that's not incompatibility, that's grounds for a civil suit for damages.

Access to sunlight is very important for both physical and mental health. You are basically saying that people should be able to do whatever the hell they want regardless if of how much it harms anyone else. Under your logic, people should people to turn their neighbors house into a practically windowless basement because people have absolute property rights.

If moving into a SFH-zoned neighborhood, people had a reasonable expectation that a new development would not entirely block their sun like this. People's homes for the most part are their single largest investment.

The County Council is not proposing to change the zoning code to "do whatever the hell you want."

If people had an expectation that the zoning code would never change, then that was not a reasonable expectation.

As for blocking the sun, I don't know if you've noticed, but we're having a heat wave. The climate is warming. Shade is a good thing, not a bad thing.

So your rebuttal to this concern is that who care about having natural light because ... climate change. That is the most ridiculous YIMBY response to community concerns I have seen in a while.

Climate change is happening, whether or not you think it's a ridiculous response. Natural light is good, but shade is also good.

I didn't say climate change is no happening. All I said was sunlight is important to public health and it inflicts real harm on neighbors if you significantly reduce their access to sunlight due to your giant building that blocks it,

Maybe? Or maybe it actually benefits them.

^^^Also, speaking of so-called giant buildings, how big do you think a fourplex is? Chances are, it's smaller than any "single-family" McMansion.

With layering of the state laws, it sounds like significantly more (up to 19 unit bldg), or at least an 8 unit bldg could be added in some currently SFH areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who is making money off this and who is pushing this through at such a slam dunk pace?

The first sentence of the report indicates that this process started over three years ago in March 2021.
It also indicates that it will take another year or so before anything is effective.

With no details to be able to evaluate it appropriately, as evidenced by the debate on this thread of what this will actually entail.

The administrative component will give the morally bankrupt MOCO planning department too much influence over the development process. They cannot be trusted to create reasonable administrative standards for this process. Judging by their improper relationships with land use political advocacy organizations I have no faith that they will make impartial decisions that are in the best interest of the county.