Reply to MoCo County Executive race

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "MoCo County Executive race"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]anybody but Jawando[/quote]

...or Glass (look at his voting record, as he likes to say, and the bills he has introduced).

...or Friedson...or Fani-Gonzalez...or Stewart...or Luedtke...or Sales...or Balcombe (all More Housing N.O.W. sponsors, making a majority that will see it passed).

Back in 2020, Elrich's first veto was of an expected $400M giveaway to developers for extremely marginal affordable housing increases for projects directly at a Metro.

https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Bill-29-20-VetoMemorandum-1.pdf

As the veto letter points out, with 8,000 units expected to be in play, developers were set to get $50k per unit, [i]when counting every unit, including those not affordable/MPDU[/i].  I guess we just didn't need the money...oh, wait...

Friedson was among the 7-2 majority that overrode the veto, and remains, with the others, above, entirely beholden to development interests at the expense both of residents of areas to be developed and the general MoCo population, who are on the tax hook to make up for the incentives.  That comes from income tax, property tax, transfer tax, etc., or rent increases at properties (SFH & older MFH) that don't get the new development exemption.  Even those moving into the newer developments end up paying, other than the few MPDUs (though that may simply be similar with much smaller footprints/low-end finishes or the like), as sale price or rent follows the whole market, not the particular development, allowing the developers to pocket nearly all of the incentive while asking rents/prices go up to cover a portion of the additional cost (tax, etc., above) -- most of it in a supply-constrained environment.

Jawando was one of two (Hucker) who voted to uphold the veto, but he did so knowing his colleagues would get past it, getting to claim opposition while failing to do anything to sway others to a different outcome.  Political calculus rather than working for the people -- his immediate follow-up was ZTA 20-07, which tried change R-60 zoning within a mile of Metro.

Councilmembers love using ZTAs to change the fundamental nature of zoned areas.  They were never meant for that.  They are meant more to accommodate nuances in building code and the like to change with time.  The introduction of new zoning and reclassifying properties from one zoning category to another is meant to accomplish changes such as those amounting to additional population density.  But politicians are happy to twist where they can, and ZTAs neither get executive review the way bills do, nor do they require the notice to residents and other procedural steps that a change in zoning would.

Not that the current Council wouldn't want an executive who would be amenable to more developer giveaways.  Any of the above, including those expected to be running for CE (Friedson, Glass & Jawando) present that.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics