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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]If anyone wants to understand why this country doesn't build ANYTHING any more (high speed rail, infrastructure, clean energy, new cities) you just have to listen to these NIMBYs.

Just so disappointing to see a bunch of old people hold the country hostage while more and more people struggle. Typical boomers.[/quote]

THERE IS A TON OF CHEAP LAND IN THE COUNTY...just not in Bethesda or Chevy Chase.

Plenty of middle class homes under 750k. People just think because they make 125k a year they are too good for them[/quote]

The further away homes are from jobs, the more transportation infrastructure is needed. [b]The NIMBY's in this country don't want to expand roads or public transportation, either.
[/b]
By all means, go to meetings saying you want to expand into the ag reserve, build out light rail and bus, and widen Darnestown Rd, Georgia Ave, University Blvd, and Connecticut Ave. See how much support you get.[/quote]

If you’d been paying attention, you’d know that upcounty residents, who YIMBYs often paint as being very NIMBY, want more roads. They really wanted M-83 but the YIMBYs on the council voted against it. On top of that, the YIMBYs have bled infrastructure funding with their tax breaks for developers. [/quote]

The downcounty residents are the NIMBY's.. Look how hard they fight the purple line.[/quote]

Case in point: The purple line is getting built. Another YIMBY win. [/quote]

The purple line was tremendously delayed.

And look at M-83. Or the CCT. Or the Montrose Parkway extension.

There hasn't been any significant change in zoning to encourage increasing density at scale. This ZTA demonstrates that quite well. You're up in arms over a relatively small increase in density in only about 1% of the lots in the county.[/quote]

None of this changes the fact that the YIMBYs have been on the winning side of every major land use vote at the council.

The only thing I’m up in arms about is YIMBYs’  refusal to take any responsibility for the state of the county’s economy and housing market. If you keep winning you actually have to fix things. Smart growth hasn’t fixed the housing market or the budget or economic growth or any of the other things that have been promised over the years. It’s made them worse. [/quote]

The county hasn't pursued growth. Everything gets wrapped up in battles limiting what ultimately happens. So we just end up with bits of infill development where there happens to be land, some redevelopment of strip malls,   and some sprawl mostly up 270.

Look at this case. We started with something that was already limited in scope and density, and then the proposal was watered down to the point that very few lots can take advantage of the changes.[/quote]

I agree that the county hasn’t pursued growth. YIMBY policies have rewarded rent seekers, so the market seeks rents instead of growth. [/quote]

To a certain extent, I agree. There's been too much of a focus on large-scale, high density projects which, as you've noted, tend to be rentals. Zoning and regulations have been set up to encourage that, too. [b]We need to be doing more to facilitate and encourage construction of things like townhomes and duplexes, which are more likely to be occupant-owned.[/b]

I don't think rentals are bad- there are a lot of situations where that is going to be the right choice. But we should have more opportunities for affordable home ownership, too.

That's what I liked about the earlier AHS proposal. It would have made it easier to build moderate density housing without them having to be part of large-scale projects in limited parts of the county. That's the only path for creating more owner-occupied housing stock without sprawl.[/quote]

The problem is that the focus of the AHS, and the ZTA that aimed to begin that by down-scoping the initial effort to parcels that affected fewer neighbors (though more greatly so) in order to reduce the outcry to politically manageable levels, was infill and replacement of existing approachable properties.

If the county wants to create more ownership opportunities in the SFH space, that is better done in greenfield development, where it can be planned at a large scale with associated  infrastructure.  If it wants to create more housing, mixed-use high density in the one-third- to half-mile vicinity of truly efficient public transportation, like off-street rail (i.e., not the Purple Line and not BRT until and unless it gets much, much better), is the way to go.

The former is farther out, so the county would need to focus on attracting [i]jobs[/i] to those areas, again in mixed-use proximity to highly efficient transport, to reduce the need to commute.  It would also need to sacrifice portions of the sacred cow that is the ag reserve -- we should have a study of the relative benefits of that and to whom those benefits principally accrue (e.g., boutique ag catering to the wealthy, non-ag estate owners, etc.; not that there [i]aren't[/i] recreational/other benefits, but accruing to relatively few, and with the broad span of the reserve not neceasary to accomplish that).

The latter, smart-growth option does not appeal to the development/RE lobby's vested interests.[/quote]

I'm certainly not against development in thr ag reserve, that doesn't address the real problem. If someone wants to buy a single family home in Gaithersburg, Olney, or Damascus, they going to be able to find one.  The scarcity isn't in houses, it's in lots. People care where they live. You can't create more housing where there's demand without increasing density.

Some of that should be high-density housing near transit.  And as you, or perhaps a different poster in this thread, have noted, that's been much of what has been done in recent years.

But that doesn't create home ownership opportunities you claim to want to facilitate. High rise construction near next to metro will necessarily be expensive due to property values and construction costs. They will generally be smaller. Within that demographic, many people would opt to rent in case they want to move for work or for more space.

Low-rise apartments in less expensive areas can help with rents. Townhomes create more opportunities for home ownership while, over time, reducing costs.[/quote]

When lots in DC got scarce the Chevy Chase Land Company (for all its faults) built a trolley line. And then whole urban areas formed north of Chevy Chase. It is possible to build infrastructure!

Low-rise apartments won’t help with rents. They’ll substitute for high-rise apartments. Developers build what they think the market will absorb and low-rise apartments don’t change demand fundamentals.

Make no mistake these will be mostly rentals. The developers don’t want to subdivide existing lots. They want to combine them, and Friedson thinks they should be able to combine up to three lots so they can build fairly large apartment buildings. [/quote]

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