Reply to Say it with me: ADUs drive housing prices UP not down

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why would DC want to open ADU development to absentee landlords and real estate speculators?  It seems counter-intuitive given the purpose of ADUs.[/quote]

It shouldn't want to, but unfortunately, too much of the discussion around this idea has been grounded in libertarian property rights terms. The point of an ADU shouldn't be "it's your land, only you can decide how you use it," it should be "this is a useful way to add more affordable housing in neighborhoods that typically haven't had it." And if it were up to me, I'd bar absentee landlords or real estate speculators from getting ADUs -- you can only have one if you live in the main house or in the accessory unit.

Of course, there are a lot of people in SFH-only-zoned neighborhoods who don't find housing affordability to be an important concern, so maybe the libertarian language is designed to appeal to them. But government can play a role in determining housing policy beyond just a straight binary "is there zoning or not" question...[/quote]

(Hint: Your house was probably built by one of those evil "speculators")[/quote]

I don’t understand why this is relevant but the developers of that house built it to sell it. They were seeking to make money in their short term through growth. Development today seems driven more by long-term rent seekers, which may be why we have a shortage. [/quote]

Developers today are also building houses to sell. Unless you're saying that developers are today are building apartment buildings to rent, and that's why we have a shortage? If so: no. That's not why we have a shortage.[/quote]

We have a housing shortage because developers aren’t building enough houses. Developers aren’t building enough housing because they prefer rent seeking to growth. There simply aren’t enough units available for purchase. Condo construction, for example, is at historic lows and condos are an important piece of the housing puzzle. [/quote]
Please name the closest intersection where you’d like developers to build more houses. [/quote]

Let’s start with [b]high rise mixed use to replace every strip mall on a major road[/b] within a mile of a metro station. That’s a lot of intersections just in my neighborhood. A lot of these places are already zoned for such a use and just need site plans and permits. [/quote]

Would you want to live on a major road? How many major roads do you cross on your mile walk to the Metro station? Do you feel safe and comfortable crossing those roads on foot?[/quote]

I have lived on a major road in a high rise and felt comfortable crossing the street. Honestly it’s ridiculous we spend any time at all catering to people who are scared to cross the street. [/quote]

I don't think it's ridiculous.
https://mcplanning.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=3bec8ba90fca4cc182cc042ed38af0e7

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Then I guess just get everything delivered but living in an urban or even suburban area means crossing the street sometimes. Not crossing the road is pretty limiting. Just ask the chicken. [/quote]

Or, maybe we could make the county's big, fast, dangerous roads safer and more walkable - as long as we're planning to put high-rise mixed development on them on the assumption that people who live there will walk to the Metro.[/quote]

I don't think we need to wait to redesign all of the roads to add housing. We'll probably need to build tunnels anyway because a lot of people will need to drive to Virginia for work and they'll need the roads.

I've never been scared of crossing the street and it seems a lot of people are able to do it, not just here but in cities around the world. You might want to look into help for that so it doesn't hold you back.[/quote]

You want to put housing near Metro so people will walk to Metro, but you also want the housing to be on big, dangerous roads that must stay on big, dangerous roads so people can drive to Virginia.

How nice for you that you've never been scared crossing big, dangerous roads. It's irrational confidence, given the dangers of crossing big roads, but if it works for you, I won't argue.[/quote]

No, people have to drive to Virginia because we don't have enough jobs for them here.

Fear of crossing roads is an irrational fear.  You're more likely to get robbed or shot than you are to be fatally hit by a driver.  The odds of those first two things happening are already exceedingly low.[/quote]

I don't want to be hit by a driver, at all. Even if it doesn't kill me. I don't know about you.[/quote]

I’m still not persuaded that your irrational fear is a good reason for not adding housing near metro stations. A lot of people (some of whom live on big roads that aren’t near metro stations) would like to stop driving to work and take the metro to work, and others would like to be closer to Virginia so they don’t have to drive across the whole county to get to work. [/quote]

I am all in favor of adding housing near Metro stations, and also making the roads in the area safe and comfortable for walking.

Prioritizing people's drives to Virginia, or prioritizing walkable housing around Metro stations, pick one, you can't have both.[/quote]

We don’t have to redo every street to have more housing near metro. That’s silly.

Have more housing near metro now or wait decades to build it while we redo all the roads. Pick one. You can’t have both. [/quote]

It doesn't take decades to redo all the roads. That's silly. We can redo them just as fast as we can build new housing near Metro. But it will make driving to Virginia less convenient.[/quote]

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