Reply to MOCO - County Wide Upzoning, Everywhere

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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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I frequently hear that missing middle housing is designed with teachers, nurses, police officers, and firefighters in mind.

As a teacher, I can tell you that in general, we don’t take the bus to get to work. A few, yes, but probably 98% do not because we bring work home regularly. Police officers, nurses, and firefighters have crazy work hours. They will drive to work as well.[/quote]

There's fewer people taking the bus today than there were 20 years ago. Use of all forms of public transportation crashed after the pandemic, even after accounting for remote work. Driving has gotten a lot more popular. [/quote]

Are you saying that mode share has shifted in favor of driving? Do you have any data for that? Bus service post-covid is also worse, of course. If the point you're making is that inadequate bus service is not popular, I won't argue. Bus riders will be the first to tell you about that, in detail, because they actually ride the bus. However, I think the conclusion to draw from this is that we need better bus service.

Now could you please explain how this relates to the zoning proposals?[/quote]

DP.

Sure.  Shouldn't the planning board and county council be focused on workable initiatives to make the lives of the residents they represent better?

[b]The increased density in detached SFH neighborhood initiatve is dependent on bus, among many other things. [/b] Yet there is not adequate bus service, existing or as planned, to support increased density making things better for current residents.

Just like most of the infrastructure that would be necessary.  Yet they do not propose tying increased density to achieving adequate infrastructure.[/quote]

Why do you say that? I don't think it's dependent on the bus.[/quote]

[background conversation among, generally. YIMBYs & NIMBYs]

YIMBY: Let's increase density in existing detached SFH neighborhoods, moreso close in where BRT corridors and Metro start to converge.  There isn't enough housing there for those who want to live in those locations.

NIMBY: I don't want the added burdens in my neighborhood that come with what you are proposing.  [Gives laundry list, including increased local vehicle traffic and cramped street parking with the proposed zoning allowing fewer on-site parkong spaces per unit].

YIMBY: That's OK, the new residents are going to take advantage of the bus, especially the BRT along those corridors.

NIMBY: Not enough of them will, and probably not very many at all.  Folks tend to take the most convenient form of transportation, and that tends to be cars for many reasons.

YIMBY: You are being classist [phrases such responses to hint at racist, too].

[a whole lot of unproductive yes/no responses]

TEACHER: [starting new post vs. a direct reply] We, and other public servants who are among the classes that the density appears to be proposed for, don't tend to take the bus.

[NIMBY throws in more of same]

YIMBY: Sure, bus is inadequate and therefore unpopular.  [i]How does this relate to the increased density proposal?[/i]

:roll:

DP: The proposed change depends on bus, but bus and other infrastructure won't be adequate to support it.

YIMBY: [i]"Why do you say that? I don't think it's dependent on the bus."[/i]

:roll:  :roll:

The report that Montgomery Planning put to the County Council on this has bus/BRT as a support.  They've used public transit in the past as a support to permit lower parking minimums.  They've discussed the same in public meetings on the current initiative.[/quote]

When someone asks you where you have heard people say things, they are probably not expecting a response of "In the conversation I made up in my head."[/quote]

^^^and to clarify:  I think the zoning proposals are generally a good idea, even if not a single one of the residents of the new housing ever sets foot on a bus. [/quote]

Way to avoid the issue.  Good thing most can see that avoidance as merely a rhetorical/political ploy.[/quote]

Way to avoid which issue? The PP said, "The increased density in detached SFH neighborhood initiatve is dependent on bus, among many other things." However, I don't think it is dependent on the bus. I think it's a good idea [b][i][u]completely irrespective of bus usage[/u][/i][/b]. If you have a different opinion about this, please explain. Or don't explain, it's up to you.[/quote]

DP. If it’s not dependent on the bus, does this mean you’re for road widening to serve the additional density? [/quote]

Nope. That would encourage more driving, more traffic, more traffic congestion, and of course more pavement and more heat. I think there's general agreement that we don't want any of those things. Right?

Please stop thinking of car traffic as some natural phenomenon, and start thinking of it as the result of people's choices. When it's more convenient for people to go places by driving, people drive more. When it's less convenient for people to go places by driving, people drive less. When it's more convenient for people to go places without driving, people also drive less.[/quote]

I think most people agree with this in general. What I think they disagree with is that Moco will ever be able to put together a system in which the convenience of using it outweighs driving. [/quote]

But MoCo already has that. Do you drive for every single trip? Every time you go anywhere, you get in a car first? And do you never make decisions like, I will take the mid-day appointment instead of the 8:30 am appointment so I don't have to drive south on 270 during rush hour? or As long as I'm already at Giant, I will just run next door to CVS instead of making a separate trip? Those are also examples of choices people make.

Insisting on 100% of people making 0% of trips by car is a unrealistic as expecting 100% of people to make 100% of trips by car, and I don't think anybody is insisting on 100% of people making 0% of trips by car. We just need change on the margins - more people making fewer trips by car, compared to now.[/quote]

[b]Which can be done without the kinds of density in existing detached SFH neighborhoods being put forth currently.[/b]  Far more effective to encourage build-out of under-built semi-urban areas within a half mile of Metro, like downtown Silver Spring, already zoned for higher densities.  Or purposefully dense greenfield development, where work-life-shop-services can be planned with well aligned densities and served directly by high-frequency linking transit, rather than expensively and disruptively shoehorning that blend of uses into areas where infrastructure/etc., would not support the increase (and in many cases hasn't been kept up enough to support existing populations/uses).[/quote]

Yes it can, you're right! Which demonstrates that it's possible. And if the county makes it legal to build small multi-unit housing where currently it's only legal to build detached single-unit housing, then it can be done more, by more people.

Also, there's no reason why the county can't or shouldn't allow small multi-unit housing (as above) AND more types of housing near Metro. Both are good. It's not one OR the other, it's both.

But if you don't want to increase driving or pavement, then you shouldn't support new greenfield development.[/quote]

Nah.  There's plenty of reason.  Those advocating for the change simply ignore the reasons provided. ( Or they lie outright, as Planning did when they put forth the tortured suggestion that there would be de minimis impact to student generation, completely ignoring, themselves, the already overcrowded conditions and the Council's persistent underfunding of the MCPS capital budget.

[b]If they've determined that housing is needed, it should be incumbent on them to pursue the types of additional housing that would be to the best benefit of those they were elected/appointed to represent -- current residents. [/b] Adding density beyond current zoning without ensuring adequate infrastructure/public facilities would not benefit those residents.

Separately, you may not consider bus transportation tied to increased densities, as was stated several posts back (with the conversation now restored), but the Council and Planning certainly present it as a major justification for the density increases.

The bus issue is not quite a red herring, as it plays a part, but the extensive (and mostly unnecessary/ unenlightening) discussion about it, here, has drowned out too much of the more holistic imperative to ensure appropriate infrastructure.  The  Council and planning have essentially said that that happens in other processes, eschewing any need to put in tie-ins and guardrails.  That is highly deceptive given both the Council's poor track record on such in recent decades and the many examples in this country of overbuilt suburbia suffering from that lack.  [/quote]

By definition though, current residents already have housing.[/quote]

Um....yes?  Not sure why you would bother writing that except to try to deflect.[/quote]

DP. Deflect from what? I think it's perfectly valid to point out that current residents, who by definition already have housing, might be less interested in housing for future residents.[/quote]

If I now own a condo, I now will need to move elsewhere to live in a SFH neighborhood, as the County is reducing the choices available to current County residents.  [/quote]

I don't understand. If you now live in a condo, and you move to a detached one-unit house, [u]by definition[/u] you will have to move, even if the County Council engraves the current zoning code on stone tablets.

Or are you saying that there is (or should be) opposition to the zoning code changes, from people who currently live in multi-unit housing in Montgomery County and who would like at some point to move to detached single-unit housing in an exclusively detached-single-unit-housing area in Montgomery County? Honestly, my first reaction to this is: get over yourself. I apologize, because there's no way to say that without sounding insulting. But seriously, if you expect other people to take your issues seriously from your perspective, then you also need to take other people's issues seriously from their perspectives.[/quote]

DP. You are intentionally misrepresenting PP’s perspective. PP was pointing out that there would be less of the type of housing that they want, so they would have to move out of county. Nowhere does the PP suggest that they are unwilling to live in a SFH that’s close to MFH.

Planning staff and board members, the council, and the advocates are pretty callous in brushing off the shortage of SFH or the impact that this proposal will have on people who are right on the cusp of being able to buy SFH in places like Viers Mill Village and Kemp Mill. The way the policymakers and advocates have tried to sell this policy lacks empathy, and that’s going to foster resentment.

[/quote]

The PP said "If I now own a condo, I now will need to move elsewhere to live in a SFH neighborhood, as the County is reducing the choices available to current County residents." They did not say anything about the cost. They said "a SFH neighborhood". What do you think they meant by this? In my experience, when people say "SFH neighborhood," they mean "an area that only has detached single-unit housing and no other housing type".

As long as we're talking about empathy, where is the empathy for people who are experiencing impacts from the general housing shortage? Do you think that people who are brushing off the existence of a general housing shortage are being pretty callous? I do. The subgroup of "people who are right on the cusp of being able to buy SFH in places like Viers Mill Village and Kemp Mill" is only a small part of the whole group of people who are experiencing impacts from the general housing shortage. I really don't know why this specific subgroup should be the priority for housing policy, or first in line for empathy, over everybody else in the whole group.[/quote]

In your first paragraph, you’d rather pick nuts than react to what’s clearly implicit. MoCo is suffering a lot of out migration because people can’t afford SFH.

In terms of empathy, you make it zero sum but there’s reason that it needs to be. The county’s entire housing policy for the past decade or more has been geared toward creating more rentals in small parts of the county. Where have Planning, the council, or advocates of upzoning brushed off the general housing shortage?

It’s time to look at how the encourage more SFH construction in addition to MFH, not instead of. Here you are arguing for a housing policy that will only reduce SFH. That’s great for me as a SFH owner but not so great for the [b]young adults who are looking for similar ownership opportunities to what their parents had.[/b] [/quote]

Do you think this group (young adults whose parents were homeowners of a detached uniplex and who now want to be homeowners of a detached uniplex) should be the top priority for housing policy in Montgomery County?

Where should Montgomery County encourage the construction of more detached uniplexes?[/quote]

They shouldn’t be the top priority, but they shouldn’t be excluded from the priorities either. That’s what you’re proposing. It used to be the housing policy of this county to build more of everything. Why the shift? You can impose economic policy by brute force (and that’s the track you’re on, so congratulations, I guess) but it doesn’t lead to residents feeling very fulfilled.

Where SFH (attached or detached) can be built is covered elsewhere in this thread or you can check out the development pipeline on the Planning website. I’m not sure why you’re so committed to the myth that all of the land in the county is already built out but it seems like you lack confidence in your own proposals on their merits so you have to push lies to make them look better. [/quote]

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