More MOCO Upzoning - Starting in Silver Spring

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Imagine if you NIMBYs spent more time voting and less time arguing online. You lost, get over it. Cities need to grow, you aren't entitled to your "home value" or whatever else nonsense you come up with.

Move to some generic suburb and leave the cool cities for us please.

This thread is about MoCo, where YIMBYs have delivered declining growth and skyrocketing housing costs. Is the problem that YIMBYism doesn’t actually deliver on its promises or are our YIMBYs just really incompetent?

Dude every housing development is held up in years of litigation for "environmental" reasons. MoCO is nowhere near the top when it comes to new housing per capita.

Are you a troll account or just misinformed?

No, very few are held up in litigation. That’s a myth. There are two things that hold up development. One is the slow planning process. We have that to entertain the bureaucrats and so that the land use lawyers can run up higher bills. The bigger thing is the developers themselves. They get their plans approved and then they don’t build because they’re concerned the market is soft. When developers say they can’t get financing, that’s code for “if I build this right now, prices will go down, and obviously we can’t have that.” I’d wager that there are more requests to extend plan validity granted each year in Montgomery County than there lawsuits, let alone successful lawsuits.

Yes, so we need types of housing to be allowed to be build so more people can build them. What don't you understand? Young people won't want to live in generic, poorly built suburb houses with ugly lawns. This is why prices continue to go up.

Please look at what New Zealand did and how dramatically it lowered rent growth.

Nimby's gonna nimby!

Some will. Some won't. It would be good if the full range of housing types were allowed by zoning.

They are, that's why we have zoning. Are the townhomes and condos in the area imaginary? What you are saying is that all types should be allowed everywhere, and that's silly.

No, they aren't. We have attached and detached single family buildings. And we have large and very large multifamily buildings. But we don't have small multifamily buildings. The zoning code doesn't allow it.

Allowing small multifamily in single family residential zoned areas of MOCO is a handout to developers & wealthy real estate investors disguised as an affordable housing agenda. It would effectively increase the allowable density in vast portions of the county by 4-8x. We don't have room for this many additional drivers on our roads or students in our schools. Developers should not be allowed to redevelop neighborhoods by-right and quadruple density while forcing county taxpayers to absorb the entire cost of infrastructure improvements and new schools. These YIMBY orgs are funded by special interest groups (real estate developers, construction industry) that want to eliminate zoning altogether. This is not an organic movement with broad public support and it is primarily driven by full-time salaried psuedo-lobbyists that work for non-profits. They are working on behalf of special interest groups to boost their profits and they don't care how it impacts communities. YIMBYs want to circumvent the democratic process and eliminate local community control over the zoning process to force a one-size fits all solution on the entire country. Do not fall for their lies, they will destroy your neighborhoods to benefit wealthy special interest groups.

The what now? Here is who has control over the zoning process: the Montgomery County Planning Board, and the Montgomery County Council.

Here is who doesn't: the Kemp Mill Civic Association, the Upper Sligo Civic Association, the Glenview Neighborhood Association, the Sligo Woods Civic Association, the Northwood Four Corners Civic Association...

Ummm... You know who would have no control over any of this if there were the expectation that they would be misusing authority by failing to engage with neighborhoods and place great weight on neighborhood concerns? The County Council and Planning Board. Because the citizenry would not have vested them with that autocratic power in the first place.

It’s pretty convenient how they’ve made this push mid election cycle…but I doubt that they will get much of this approved in a meaningful way before the next election. We will really need an accounting of which council members are responsible for this.

I think you are off on that assessment. I think they are pushing it through right now, because opposition will only grow and because later timing would put the issue front and center during the election cycle instead of in the rear-view mirror where they'd want it.

By the time most of those impacted become aware, it will be too far down the stage-gate approvals process. Anyone running for County Council next year (only a few due to MoCo's majority-friendly staggered elections) will have plenty of time to brush off criticism, especially since the felt effects will take a bit of time post-approval.

I think that it will take some years before they can BEGIN, no matter what is approved soon. Approvals can be overturned.

Lawsuits can take a long time to resolve.

DP. It’s clear that they are going the furthest after Friedson was PHED chair then now as Council President and Kate Stewart is lined up to be next Council President. So everyone whose hands are on it are also the most reliable for developers and the most insulated. At some point it will demand a full Council vote and that’s when things get interesting.

It’s not accurate to lump Stewart in with Friedson. Friedson is totally captive to developers and land use lawyers. Stewart is mostly ideologically aligned with Friedson but Stewart is more of a free thinker. Friedson, for example, was a hard no on rent control but Stewart pushed a compromise.

LOL. Is this a joke? Immediately after the election and before she was even sworn in she was touring White Flint with developer lobbyist. Her sole role on the council and the reason they created her district is allow for a pro housing Takoma Park candidate exactly like her to promote building everywhere except in her own community. Exactly the same as Reimer and Leventhal who she replaced.

And Mink has a “land use guy” whatever that job title means. Are they all in with developers? I regret voting for her now as our neighborhood is slated for development now too.

This is odd topic but I never understood why anyone voted for her. She had no prior record of community service and her major claim to fame was going viral yelling at a Trump administration official with her baby. Her district was specifically created to provide representation to Black residents. Once Jawando is off the Council, I suspect that folks are going to turn on her hard. She will get primaried and lose because she’s not representing her district as she runs around doing her left wing performance routine while poverty increases and violence escalates.

Mink is an empty suit. She's a lifelong activist who knows nothing about actual legislating. Her long record of publicly saying batshit crazy things should provide easy campaign fodder for her opponents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nimby's gonna nimby, all day, every day. Y'all are hilarious.

Of course, we are the voice of reason. You seem to be under the impression that YImBYs are doing something other than crying their big boy and girl tears.

Wah Wah, we can’t stamp our feet and get everything we want.

You really should the fact that people are laughing at you, not with you.

Are you a parody account? Please tell me you are. lol.

You all have no idea how few people actually support your NIMBY ideas, do you? 30 people showing up at a "community input" meeting means nothing. We elected pro-growth people, and it will happen. Get over it. You lose.

We elected people who don’t seem to know the first thing about growth. Despite all of their claims about being pro-growth, they’ve delivered job losses and the slowest housing growth since World War II. Everyone loses.

I don’t get why the YIMBYs keep supporting people who repeatedly deliver such poor outcomes. The YIMBYs are hyper focused on inputs (ie bike lanes, master plans, etc) but never demand outputs.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Imagine if you NIMBYs spent more time voting and less time arguing online. You lost, get over it. Cities need to grow, you aren't entitled to your "home value" or whatever else nonsense you come up with.

Move to some generic suburb and leave the cool cities for us please.

This thread is about MoCo, where YIMBYs have delivered declining growth and skyrocketing housing costs. Is the problem that YIMBYism doesn’t actually deliver on its promises or are our YIMBYs just really incompetent?

Dude every housing development is held up in years of litigation for "environmental" reasons. MoCO is nowhere near the top when it comes to new housing per capita.

Are you a troll account or just misinformed?

No, very few are held up in litigation. That’s a myth. There are two things that hold up development. One is the slow planning process. We have that to entertain the bureaucrats and so that the land use lawyers can run up higher bills. The bigger thing is the developers themselves. They get their plans approved and then they don’t build because they’re concerned the market is soft. When developers say they can’t get financing, that’s code for “if I build this right now, prices will go down, and obviously we can’t have that.” I’d wager that there are more requests to extend plan validity granted each year in Montgomery County than there lawsuits, let alone successful lawsuits.

Yes, so we need types of housing to be allowed to be build so more people can build them. What don't you understand? Young people won't want to live in generic, poorly built suburb houses with ugly lawns. This is why prices continue to go up.

Please look at what New Zealand did and how dramatically it lowered rent growth.

Nimby's gonna nimby!

Some will. Some won't. It would be good if the full range of housing types were allowed by zoning.

They are, that's why we have zoning. Are the townhomes and condos in the area imaginary? What you are saying is that all types should be allowed everywhere, and that's silly.

No, they aren't. We have attached and detached single family buildings. And we have large and very large multifamily buildings. But we don't have small multifamily buildings. The zoning code doesn't allow it.

Allowing small multifamily in single family residential zoned areas of MOCO is a handout to developers & wealthy real estate investors disguised as an affordable housing agenda. It would effectively increase the allowable density in vast portions of the county by 4-8x. We don't have room for this many additional drivers on our roads or students in our schools. Developers should not be allowed to redevelop neighborhoods by-right and quadruple density while forcing county taxpayers to absorb the entire cost of infrastructure improvements and new schools. These YIMBY orgs are funded by special interest groups (real estate developers, construction industry) that want to eliminate zoning altogether. This is not an organic movement with broad public support and it is primarily driven by full-time salaried psuedo-lobbyists that work for non-profits. They are working on behalf of special interest groups to boost their profits and they don't care how it impacts communities. YIMBYs want to circumvent the democratic process and eliminate local community control over the zoning process to force a one-size fits all solution on the entire country. Do not fall for their lies, they will destroy your neighborhoods to benefit wealthy special interest groups.

The what now? Here is who has control over the zoning process: the Montgomery County Planning Board, and the Montgomery County Council.

Here is who doesn't: the Kemp Mill Civic Association, the Upper Sligo Civic Association, the Glenview Neighborhood Association, the Sligo Woods Civic Association, the Northwood Four Corners Civic Association...

Ummm... You know who would have no control over any of this if there were the expectation that they would be misusing authority by failing to engage with neighborhoods and place great weight on neighborhood concerns? The County Council and Planning Board. Because the citizenry would not have vested them with that autocratic power in the first place.

It’s pretty convenient how they’ve made this push mid election cycle…but I doubt that they will get much of this approved in a meaningful way before the next election. We will really need an accounting of which council members are responsible for this.

I think you are off on that assessment. I think they are pushing it through right now, because opposition will only grow and because later timing would put the issue front and center during the election cycle instead of in the rear-view mirror where they'd want it.

By the time most of those impacted become aware, it will be too far down the stage-gate approvals process. Anyone running for County Council next year (only a few due to MoCo's majority-friendly staggered elections) will have plenty of time to brush off criticism, especially since the felt effects will take a bit of time post-approval.

I think that it will take some years before they can BEGIN, no matter what is approved soon. Approvals can be overturned.

Lawsuits can take a long time to resolve.

DP. It’s clear that they are going the furthest after Friedson was PHED chair then now as Council President and Kate Stewart is lined up to be next Council President. So everyone whose hands are on it are also the most reliable for developers and the most insulated. At some point it will demand a full Council vote and that’s when things get interesting.

It’s not accurate to lump Stewart in with Friedson. Friedson is totally captive to developers and land use lawyers. Stewart is mostly ideologically aligned with Friedson but Stewart is more of a free thinker. Friedson, for example, was a hard no on rent control but Stewart pushed a compromise.

Stewart couldn’t just vote no on rent control because it would be obviously hypocritical coming from Takoma Park. Rent control for me but not for thee would be pretty hard for her to shake for the rest of her career.

She could have signed up for the original Friedson plan, which set the cap at 10 percent a year.

The optics would look bad if sided with the white guy against the Latina.

Fani Gonzalez was the original lead sponsor of the 10 percent cap. A majority of council members co-sponsored, but Stewart was not among them. If Stewart had co-sponsored, the bill would have started with a veto-proof number of co-sponsors. At the time, Stewart said she thought 10 percent was too high, so I think it’s safe to conclude that her reasons for not supporting 10 percent were substantive.

But then the politics shifted and she started coming under a lot of pressure. Fani Gonzalez played her hand well and Stewart was stuck looking like a hypocritical racist with all of her TP activists who got her elected yelling at her on social media so she quickly changed course.

The whole point is that Stewart is a developer shill and you prove that. Only a developer shill could ascend to Council president after only 2 years. And she’s going to carry this bad plan home and give it political cover heading into the next election.

If you play out the counter factual, where Stewart was an original co-sponsor and the bill had a super majority of co-sponsors, there would have been no window for the politics to shift. With the bill still in play, Mink and Jawando effectively mobilized community organizations and forced Fani Gonzalez to shift course.

Mink will definitely get primaried. Provided that the field isn’t too crowded, she’ll lose to a candidate who benefits from direct developer donations and “issue ads” paid for by PACs. There’s no question the developers want pay back for rent control. They will exact a toll from Mink just like they made CASA and others pay for coming out against the Friedson bill.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine if you NIMBYs spent more time voting and less time arguing online. You lost, get over it. Cities need to grow, you aren't entitled to your "home value" or whatever else nonsense you come up with.

Move to some generic suburb and leave the cool cities for us please.

This thread is about MoCo, where YIMBYs have delivered declining growth and skyrocketing housing costs. Is the problem that YIMBYism doesn’t actually deliver on its promises or are our YIMBYs just really incompetent?

Dude every housing development is held up in years of litigation for "environmental" reasons. MoCO is nowhere near the top when it comes to new housing per capita.

Are you a troll account or just misinformed?

No, very few are held up in litigation. That’s a myth. There are two things that hold up development. One is the slow planning process. We have that to entertain the bureaucrats and so that the land use lawyers can run up higher bills. The bigger thing is the developers themselves. They get their plans approved and then they don’t build because they’re concerned the market is soft. When developers say they can’t get financing, that’s code for “if I build this right now, prices will go down, and obviously we can’t have that.” I’d wager that there are more requests to extend plan validity granted each year in Montgomery County than there lawsuits, let alone successful lawsuits.

Yes, so we need types of housing to be allowed to be build so more people can build them. What don't you understand? Young people won't want to live in generic, poorly built suburb houses with ugly lawns. This is why prices continue to go up.

Please look at what New Zealand did and how dramatically it lowered rent growth.

Nimby's gonna nimby!

Some will. Some won't. It would be good if the full range of housing types were allowed by zoning.

They are, that's why we have zoning. Are the townhomes and condos in the area imaginary? What you are saying is that all types should be allowed everywhere, and that's silly.

No, they aren't. We have attached and detached single family buildings. And we have large and very large multifamily buildings. But we don't have small multifamily buildings. The zoning code doesn't allow it.

Allowing small multifamily in single family residential zoned areas of MOCO is a handout to developers & wealthy real estate investors disguised as an affordable housing agenda. It would effectively increase the allowable density in vast portions of the county by 4-8x. We don't have room for this many additional drivers on our roads or students in our schools. Developers should not be allowed to redevelop neighborhoods by-right and quadruple density while forcing county taxpayers to absorb the entire cost of infrastructure improvements and new schools. These YIMBY orgs are funded by special interest groups (real estate developers, construction industry) that want to eliminate zoning altogether. This is not an organic movement with broad public support and it is primarily driven by full-time salaried psuedo-lobbyists that work for non-profits. They are working on behalf of special interest groups to boost their profits and they don't care how it impacts communities. YIMBYs want to circumvent the democratic process and eliminate local community control over the zoning process to force a one-size fits all solution on the entire country. Do not fall for their lies, they will destroy your neighborhoods to benefit wealthy special interest groups.

The what now? Here is who has control over the zoning process: the Montgomery County Planning Board, and the Montgomery County Council.

Here is who doesn't: the Kemp Mill Civic Association, the Upper Sligo Civic Association, the Glenview Neighborhood Association, the Sligo Woods Civic Association, the Northwood Four Corners Civic Association...

Ummm... You know who would have no control over any of this if there were the expectation that they would be misusing authority by failing to engage with neighborhoods and place great weight on neighborhood concerns? The County Council and Planning Board. Because the citizenry would not have vested them with that autocratic power in the first place.

It’s pretty convenient how they’ve made this push mid election cycle…but I doubt that they will get much of this approved in a meaningful way before the next election. We will really need an accounting of which council members are responsible for this.

I think you are off on that assessment. I think they are pushing it through right now, because opposition will only grow and because later timing would put the issue front and center during the election cycle instead of in the rear-view mirror where they'd want it.

By the time most of those impacted become aware, it will be too far down the stage-gate approvals process. Anyone running for County Council next year (only a few due to MoCo's majority-friendly staggered elections) will have plenty of time to brush off criticism, especially since the felt effects will take a bit of time post-approval.

I think that it will take some years before they can BEGIN, no matter what is approved soon. Approvals can be overturned.

Lawsuits can take a long time to resolve.

DP. It’s clear that they are going the furthest after Friedson was PHED chair then now as Council President and Kate Stewart is lined up to be next Council President. So everyone whose hands are on it are also the most reliable for developers and the most insulated. At some point it will demand a full Council vote and that’s when things get interesting.

It’s not accurate to lump Stewart in with Friedson. Friedson is totally captive to developers and land use lawyers. Stewart is mostly ideologically aligned with Friedson but Stewart is more of a free thinker. Friedson, for example, was a hard no on rent control but Stewart pushed a compromise.

Stewart couldn’t just vote no on rent control because it would be obviously hypocritical coming from Takoma Park. Rent control for me but not for thee would be pretty hard for her to shake for the rest of her career.

She could have signed up for the original Friedson plan, which set the cap at 10 percent a year.

The optics would look bad if sided with the white guy against the Latina.

Fani Gonzalez was the original lead sponsor of the 10 percent cap. A majority of council members co-sponsored, but Stewart was not among them. If Stewart had co-sponsored, the bill would have started with a veto-proof number of co-sponsors. At the time, Stewart said she thought 10 percent was too high, so I think it’s safe to conclude that her reasons for not supporting 10 percent were substantive.

But then the politics shifted and she started coming under a lot of pressure. Fani Gonzalez played her hand well and Stewart was stuck looking like a hypocritical racist with all of her TP activists who got her elected yelling at her on social media so she quickly changed course.

The whole point is that Stewart is a developer shill and you prove that. Only a developer shill could ascend to Council president after only 2 years. And she’s going to carry this bad plan home and give it political cover heading into the next election.

If you play out the counter factual, where Stewart was an original co-sponsor and the bill had a super majority of co-sponsors, there would have been no window for the politics to shift. With the bill still in play, Mink and Jawando effectively mobilized community organizations and forced Fani Gonzalez to shift course.

Mink will definitely get primaried. Provided that the field isn’t too crowded, she’ll lose to a candidate who benefits from direct developer donations and “issue ads” paid for by PACs. There’s no question the developers want pay back for rent control. They will exact a toll from Mink just like they made CASA and others pay for coming out against the Friedson bill.

This gets to the point that Stewart didn’t co-sponsor the bill because she’s even more of a developer shill than Friedson. And only changed course when it was making her look bad. What “principled” objections could she have coming from TP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nimby's gonna nimby, all day, every day. Y'all are hilarious.

Of course, we are the voice of reason. You seem to be under the impression that YImBYs are doing something other than crying their big boy and girl tears.

Wah Wah, we can’t stamp our feet and get everything we want.

You really should the fact that people are laughing at you, not with you.

Are you a parody account? Please tell me you are. lol.

You all have no idea how few people actually support your NIMBY ideas, do you? 30 people showing up at a "community input" meeting means nothing. We elected pro-growth people, and it will happen. Get over it. You lose.

Can you name a single thing that the YImBYs have won, locally?

One victory? I mean, one that anyone cares about or that was contested.

You only have a spend a few minutes on any of their Facebook or Instagram groups to see what a bunch of fools they are, and I invite everyone to do so. It’s very entertaining. Non stop crying about them mean ol’ NIMBYs and it’s so unfair…lmao. Wah Wah, I can’t live everywhere I want…mommy won’t let me eat ice cream for dinner, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nimby's gonna nimby, all day, every day. Y'all are hilarious.

Of course, we are the voice of reason. You seem to be under the impression that YImBYs are doing something other than crying their big boy and girl tears.

Wah Wah, we can’t stamp our feet and get everything we want.

You really should the fact that people are laughing at you, not with you.

Are you a parody account? Please tell me you are. lol.

You all have no idea how few people actually support your NIMBY ideas, do you? 30 people showing up at a "community input" meeting means nothing. We elected pro-growth people, and it will happen. Get over it. You lose.

We elected people who don’t seem to know the first thing about growth. Despite all of their claims about being pro-growth, they’ve delivered job losses and the slowest housing growth since World War II. Everyone loses.

I don’t get why the YIMBYs keep supporting people who repeatedly deliver such poor outcomes. The YIMBYs are hyper focused on inputs (ie bike lanes, master plans, etc) but never demand outputs.

The YIMBYs are hyper focused on an aesthetic utopian vision of trying to change the built environment with the goal of facilitating a very culturally specific leisure lifestyle. They think the right zoning changes and plans will somehow lead them to this promised land. I truly hope that someone, somewhere is doing research on the messianic influences on these urbanist YIMBYs. Because when I see their plans with their sketch drawings of people enjoying their utopian streetscapes it truly reminds me of the cover art on Jehova’s Witness literature in terms of utopian bizarreness. They also have the commonality that their utopian world never materializes and neither seem to wonder why, except to conclude that it is a lack of belief.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nimby's gonna nimby, all day, every day. Y'all are hilarious.

Of course, we are the voice of reason. You seem to be under the impression that YImBYs are doing something other than crying their big boy and girl tears.

Wah Wah, we can’t stamp our feet and get everything we want.

You really should the fact that people are laughing at you, not with you.

Are you a parody account? Please tell me you are. lol.

You all have no idea how few people actually support your NIMBY ideas, do you? 30 people showing up at a "community input" meeting means nothing. We elected pro-growth people, and it will happen. Get over it. You lose.

We elected people who don’t seem to know the first thing about growth. Despite all of their claims about being pro-growth, they’ve delivered job losses and the slowest housing growth since World War II. Everyone loses.

I don’t get why the YIMBYs keep supporting people who repeatedly deliver such poor outcomes. The YIMBYs are hyper focused on inputs (ie bike lanes, master plans, etc) but never demand outputs.

The YIMBYs are hyper focused on an aesthetic utopian vision of trying to change the built environment with the goal of facilitating a very culturally specific leisure lifestyle. They think the right zoning changes and plans will somehow lead them to this promised land. I truly hope that someone, somewhere is doing research on the messianic influences on these urbanist YIMBYs. Because when I see their plans with their sketch drawings of people enjoying their utopian streetscapes it truly reminds me of the cover art on Jehova’s Witness literature in terms of utopian bizarreness. They also have the commonality that their utopian world never materializes and neither seem to wonder why, except to conclude that it is a lack of belief.

I always thought that they reminded me of Scientologists in the spread and defense of their versions of truth, but yes, definitely cult like in one way or another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nimby's gonna nimby, all day, every day. Y'all are hilarious.

Of course, we are the voice of reason. You seem to be under the impression that YImBYs are doing something other than crying their big boy and girl tears.

Wah Wah, we can’t stamp our feet and get everything we want.

You really should the fact that people are laughing at you, not with you.

Are you a parody account? Please tell me you are. lol.

You all have no idea how few people actually support your NIMBY ideas, do you? 30 people showing up at a "community input" meeting means nothing. We elected pro-growth people, and it will happen. Get over it. You lose.

Can you name a single thing that the YImBYs have won, locally?

One victory? I mean, one that anyone cares about or that was contested.

You only have a spend a few minutes on any of their Facebook or Instagram groups to see what a bunch of fools they are, and I invite everyone to do so. It’s very entertaining. Non stop crying about them mean ol’ NIMBYs and it’s so unfair…lmao. Wah Wah, I can’t live everywhere I want…mommy won’t let me eat ice cream for dinner, either.

They are fools but they had George Leventhal, Hans Riemer, and now Evan Glass. The YIMBYs win a lot, if you define winning as approving ineffective programs that at best have done no harm. They pushed through the master plans, the general plan, the growth strategy, the economic development programs, and all the ZTAs. The Montgomery County economy IS the YIMBY economy. The Montgomery County housing market IS the YIMBY housing market. If you have to leave the county to get a good job and you can’t afford to buy a house here, thank a YIMBY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prices go up for detached SFHs in areas of increasing density because that is what most prefer.

NIMBYs love pretending to be daft just to question the obvious.

How are the YIMBYs going to address the shortage of detached SFHs in areas of increasing density?

By letting people build SFHs in those areas if they want.

YIMBYs have a funny way of saying, "We're going to make that entirely unlikely, but won't make it illegal, so there really isn't a problem, right?"

Nothing to see here! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

[Anonymous]

Coming soon to ruin your neighborhood:

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/housing/missing-middle-montgomery-county-maryland-zoning-affordable-housing/65-93cefa3c-c40c-4dc4-87ee-f6484047d9eb


I’m going to laugh my ass of as this spectacularly backfires when people with means (I.e. the biggest taxpayers in MoCo) flee the county because they’re ruining neighborhoods with high density housing that’s going to do nothing more than import a whole bunch of poverty and make the county sh!tty. The tax base is going to crumble, moco gets drastically poorer, schools collapse, and the entire county turns into a s hole. It’s the baltimorification of MoCo.

[Anonymous]

So Thursday they livestream this plan and vote in Fall? I truly do not think enough people have been made aware of the Wump World coming to their neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Coming soon to ruin your neighborhood:

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/housing/missing-middle-montgomery-county-maryland-zoning-affordable-housing/65-93cefa3c-c40c-4dc4-87ee-f6484047d9eb


I’m going to laugh my ass of as this spectacularly backfires when people with means (I.e. the biggest taxpayers in MoCo) flee the county because they’re ruining neighborhoods with high density housing that’s going to do nothing more than import a whole bunch of poverty and make the county sh!tty. The tax base is going to crumble, moco gets drastically poorer, schools collapse, and the entire county turns into a s hole. It’s the baltimorification of MoCo.

That’s not how it’s going to backfire. The economics still favor McMansions in the most desirable neighborhoods. It’s going to backfire because the places where multiplexes pencil out are only marginally walkable to quality transit (at best). As we get more multiplexes, more people will drive, creating more demand for roads.

[Anonymous]

If the Planning Department and county council care so much about missing middle housing, what aren’t they putting policies in place to get it built in urban areas instead of more large rental buildings without units more than 2 bedrooms?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the Planning Department and county council care so much about missing middle housing, what aren’t they putting policies in place to get it built in urban areas instead of more large rental buildings without units more than 2 bedrooms?

Because that requires work. It's a lot easier to just leave those places for dead.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Imagine if you NIMBYs spent more time voting and less time arguing online. You lost, get over it. Cities need to grow, you aren't entitled to your "home value" or whatever else nonsense you come up with.

Move to some generic suburb and leave the cool cities for us please.

This thread is about MoCo, where YIMBYs have delivered declining growth and skyrocketing housing costs. Is the problem that YIMBYism doesn’t actually deliver on its promises or are our YIMBYs just really incompetent?

Dude every housing development is held up in years of litigation for "environmental" reasons. MoCO is nowhere near the top when it comes to new housing per capita.

Are you a troll account or just misinformed?

No, very few are held up in litigation. That’s a myth. There are two things that hold up development. One is the slow planning process. We have that to entertain the bureaucrats and so that the land use lawyers can run up higher bills. The bigger thing is the developers themselves. They get their plans approved and then they don’t build because they’re concerned the market is soft. When developers say they can’t get financing, that’s code for “if I build this right now, prices will go down, and obviously we can’t have that.” I’d wager that there are more requests to extend plan validity granted each year in Montgomery County than there lawsuits, let alone successful lawsuits.

Yes, so we need types of housing to be allowed to be build so more people can build them. What don't you understand? Young people won't want to live in generic, poorly built suburb houses with ugly lawns. This is why prices continue to go up.

Please look at what New Zealand did and how dramatically it lowered rent growth.

Nimby's gonna nimby!

Some will. Some won't. It would be good if the full range of housing types were allowed by zoning.

They are, that's why we have zoning. Are the townhomes and condos in the area imaginary? What you are saying is that all types should be allowed everywhere, and that's silly.

No, they aren't. We have attached and detached single family buildings. And we have large and very large multifamily buildings. But we don't have small multifamily buildings. The zoning code doesn't allow it.

Allowing small multifamily in single family residential zoned areas of MOCO is a handout to developers & wealthy real estate investors disguised as an affordable housing agenda. It would effectively increase the allowable density in vast portions of the county by 4-8x. We don't have room for this many additional drivers on our roads or students in our schools. Developers should not be allowed to redevelop neighborhoods by-right and quadruple density while forcing county taxpayers to absorb the entire cost of infrastructure improvements and new schools. These YIMBY orgs are funded by special interest groups (real estate developers, construction industry) that want to eliminate zoning altogether. This is not an organic movement with broad public support and it is primarily driven by full-time salaried psuedo-lobbyists that work for non-profits. They are working on behalf of special interest groups to boost their profits and they don't care how it impacts communities. YIMBYs want to circumvent the democratic process and eliminate local community control over the zoning process to force a one-size fits all solution on the entire country. Do not fall for their lies, they will destroy your neighborhoods to benefit wealthy special interest groups.

The what now? Here is who has control over the zoning process: the Montgomery County Planning Board, and the Montgomery County Council.

Here is who doesn't: the Kemp Mill Civic Association, the Upper Sligo Civic Association, the Glenview Neighborhood Association, the Sligo Woods Civic Association, the Northwood Four Corners Civic Association...

Ummm... You know who would have no control over any of this if there were the expectation that they would be misusing authority by failing to engage with neighborhoods and place great weight on neighborhood concerns? The County Council and Planning Board. Because the citizenry would not have vested them with that autocratic power in the first place.

It’s pretty convenient how they’ve made this push mid election cycle…but I doubt that they will get much of this approved in a meaningful way before the next election. We will really need an accounting of which council members are responsible for this.

I think you are off on that assessment. I think they are pushing it through right now, because opposition will only grow and because later timing would put the issue front and center during the election cycle instead of in the rear-view mirror where they'd want it.

By the time most of those impacted become aware, it will be too far down the stage-gate approvals process. Anyone running for County Council next year (only a few due to MoCo's majority-friendly staggered elections) will have plenty of time to brush off criticism, especially since the felt effects will take a bit of time post-approval.

I think that it will take some years before they can BEGIN, no matter what is approved soon. Approvals can be overturned.

Lawsuits can take a long time to resolve.

DP. It’s clear that they are going the furthest after Friedson was PHED chair then now as Council President and Kate Stewart is lined up to be next Council President. So everyone whose hands are on it are also the most reliable for developers and the most insulated. At some point it will demand a full Council vote and that’s when things get interesting.

It’s not accurate to lump Stewart in with Friedson. Friedson is totally captive to developers and land use lawyers. Stewart is mostly ideologically aligned with Friedson but Stewart is more of a free thinker. Friedson, for example, was a hard no on rent control but Stewart pushed a compromise.

LOL. Is this a joke? Immediately after the election and before she was even sworn in she was touring White Flint with developer lobbyist. Her sole role on the council and the reason they created her district is allow for a pro housing Takoma Park candidate exactly like her to promote building everywhere except in her own community. Exactly the same as Reimer and Leventhal who she replaced.

And Mink has a “land use guy” whatever that job title means. Are they all in with developers? I regret voting for her now as our neighborhood is slated for development now too.

This is odd topic but I never understood why anyone voted for her. She had no prior record of community service and her major claim to fame was going viral yelling at a Trump administration official with her baby. Her district was specifically created to provide representation to Black residents. Once Jawando is off the Council, I suspect that folks are going to turn on her hard. She will get primaried and lose because she’s not representing her district as she runs around doing her left wing performance routine while poverty increases and violence escalates.

Mink is an empty suit. She's a lifelong activist who knows nothing about actual legislating. Her long record of publicly saying batshit crazy things should provide easy campaign fodder for her opponents.

And yet, she managed to get elected. I have no faith in the voters anymore. They’re all as nuts as she is.