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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Jawando.

Glass only cares about rich people who can bike to work or eat vegan. [/quote]
Jawando doesn’t want to build houses. Also Glass made the RideOn free, so maybe he doesn’t only care about bikers, he cares about our world not overheating.[/quote]

Jawando does want to build houses. He just votes against nonsensical subsidies for $5k apartments and zoning plans that have no infrastructure or strategic vision to back them up. It’s ridiculous to paint him as anti-housing. The YIMBYs dislike him because he’s pro-consumer. [/quote]

Not sure I quite agree with your framing of the issue here, my friend. MoCo is facing a housing affordability crisis — young people, teachers, and firefighters, among other crucial groups, are being priced out of the county — and the solution to a housing affordability crisis is to build more smart and affordable housing. That’s Econ 101, supply and demand. Now, does this mean promoting feckless, unsustainable, and unaffordable housing development every which way? Of course not. But it does mean supporting common-sense proposals like Bill 29-20 (which Jawando was one of two councilmembers to vote against) to build more affordable housing along transit corridors. I have concerns with Jawando’s track record on affordable housing.[/quote]

DP.  We don't agree on the approach suggested.  The Econ 101 reference supplies more rhetorical support than robust, given complex issues at hand varied stakeholders and highly differential impacts.[/quote]

Fair point, DP. But I think one could say the same about your claim that the “YIMBYs dislike [Jawando] because he’s pro-consumer.” Would you be willing to expand a little on what kind of approach you would support to the housing affordability crisis? The example provided in the post to which you most directly replied seems to be an example of Jawando rejecting an inoffensive, pragmatic suggestion to a problem that has been roiling the county for years. Track records should matter.[/quote]

We need competition policy. That starts with going after price fixing and establishing modest rent stabilization (the second is done already; Friedson will probably prevent the first from moving through PHP because his donors make money from price fixing).

To add to those policies, we should revise the tax regime so that land speculation is really expensive. This should be done through targeted property tax measures and through recordation tax changes. All these things should be done in combination with permitting reforms, plan approval reforms, and targeted upzoning in residential neighborhoods close to metro stations. The various PILOTs should all be repealed because they just make land more expensive.

Bill 29-20 was nothing more than a bailout for Five Square, which subsequently donated more than $10k to Friedson. They made a bad land deal and claimed they couldn’t be profitable if they had to pay property taxes. When the county bails out developers who make bad deals, the county effectively props up land prices. Better to let the developer fail and have the building rights be repriced at market value at auction.

Moreover, bill 29-20 provided major benefits to the private developer but little public benefit. We got two eight-story towers with astronomical rents. To the extent the subsidy passed through to renters, it was only to renters around 200 percent AMI. We shouldn’t be subsidizing housing at that income level. Jawando was fiscally responsible and smart to oppose.

If you think housing is Econ 101, you either forgot Econ 101 or you didn’t take it. [/quote]

Genuine question, is there causal (and not just associative) evidence that land speculation is increasing prices?

And what role do really high incomes play in the market, since MANY people can afford the high prices.

Additionally, it costs more to build these days, so builders have to recoup costs.  And make a fair profit.  I have no idea what type of profit they make, and perhaps they are gouging buyers for no reason other than they can.  Or maybe it's the slow process to approve new housing developments -- the longer it takes, the more their financing costs them (and then us).   Are there any studies on what new housing developments are providing in terms of profits for the homebuilders?

I truly don't know because I don't follow this.  [/quote]

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