Reply to MOCO - County Wide Upzoning, Everywhere

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What is the plan for schools and infrastructure if SFHs start becoming 3 or 4 unit structures? Our local DCC schools are already overcrowded and it takes years to renovate or rebuild bigger schools. Class sizes are already large and aggravated by recently approved layoffs by MCPS (egregious, but that’s a whole other topic). [/quote]

The folks in Planning have posited that the impact on school populations will be minimal.  They have not put their analysis that supports that thought out for public review, so...[/quote]

Minimal impact on schools is an obvious consequence of Planning’s assessment that very few multiplexes will actually get built. As long as they don’t wipe out the potential tax base through impact fee exemptions and property tax abatements, the consequences of  Planning being wrong will be minimal for schools because revenue will be available for school construction.

Of greater concern is the fact that Planning has focused its housing efforts on this proposal and that it continued to do so even after its initial analysis found that very few multiplexes would be built. That’s great for NIMBYs but not great for people looking to buy homes because those people need an effective housing strategy, not a set of vanity policies. [/quote]

They suggest that not too many will get built, but their track record of such forecasts suggests that they are putting that analytic finding out there (not showing the umderlying analysis for that, either) for political support --  creating an impression of minimal impact to reduce opposition.

If they truly thought that and were at all responsible in their recommendations, they would include neighborhood cap guardrails.

Same goes for a moratorium where facilities are or would be inadequate.  Saying "revenue will be available for school construction" ignores the facts that 1) the Council routinely has chosen to under-fund the MCPS CIP and 2) the areas most likely impacted if Planning is wrong are already overcrowded and, due to their being nearly built out, without good options for additional school sites.

And while school capacity is among the more important considerations for adequate public facilities, there are significant others.[/quote]

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