Reply to Schools near metro will get more housing without overcrowding relief

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Schools near metro will get more housing without overcrowding relief"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[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]The county needs more housing without more traffic; this is a win. MCPS needs to better use the capacity they have; that's on the BOE. Or something like that.[/quote]

This is either a troll response or someone with no kids in MCPS. First of all, there is a baked-in assumption that mixed-income and low-income housing residents don't own cars if they are walking distance to public transportation. As a result, new buildings often have far fewer parking spaces than they do units. However, the assumptions here are not actually true, particularly post-covid. All of the amenities that make it possible for white collar professionals to comfortably work from home and have their take-out, groceries, and office supplies delivered to their door? Those are all brought by residents of multi-family dwellings using their own personal vehicles. In the gig economy, a working class family needs a car, and needs somewhere to park it.

Further, in most of these neighborhoods, there is no capacity to use. Schools at all levels are giving up playground and outdoor space to make room for portable classrooms. The failure of our municipal/county leadership to work with MCPS to deal with these issues is not only troubling, but ultimately will damage any nascent YIMBY movement that would have otherwise developed.

Basically, the YIMBY approach in MoCo is one of "heightening the differences." Rather than making things better for everyone by building enough parking or working with the school district to absorb capacity, the approach is to make everyone so miserable that they start riding public transportation because the roads are so gridlocked with InstaCart drivers that regular residents can't get out of the neighborhoods. [/quote]

Right because no MCPS parent could possibly have a different opinion from your own. Must be a troll.

:roll: [/quote]

How old are your kids?  We have many neighbors who are very pro-development, partly because they truly are concerned about the lack of affordable housing, partly because they’re desperate to walk to a coffee shop.  But I noticed they all have kids that are either in high school or college already. [b]They won’t be affected by the lack of new school infrastructure. [/b] My kids are young and our ES is 10 years old and already over capacity. MS is similarly overcrowded, and we all know it’s a problem at most of the DCC high schools.  When the new proposed development adjacent to our neighborhood is built, and others like it, where are the kids supposed to go?[/quote]

They will be affected by their young-adult kids not being able to afford to live in Montgomery County, even if they wanted to.[/quote]

So now we need to build more housing for young adults from UMC families who want to be able to live wherever they want in their 20s?  lol.  I guess that makes sense when you consider most of the buildings going up will have 1-2BR apartments.  [/quote]

If you want young adults to live in Montgomery County, then yes, there needs to be housing in Montgomery County that they want to live in and can afford to live in.[/quote]

Not PP and this is anecdotal, but the millennials I know who are looking for housing in MoCo are looking to move out of their apts/condos into houses/townhouses.  There is definitely a shortage of the type of housing young families are looking for.  But maybe we all need to be open to the idea of apartment living like families in other cities are.[/quote]

I’m totally open to the idea of parents and kids living in apartments. I just don’t want to be one of them. A lot of other people apparently don’t either, given that rents have leveled off but SFH prices keep increasing. Maybe the real solution to the housing crisis is building more SFH. It’s funny that none of the housing advocates ever suggest that. It’s almost as if their interests are perfectly aligned with those of big landlords. [/quote]

Or more townhome/duplex developments. They want to change the zoning so that SFHs can be torn down to build them but seems like whenever there is an open plot of land up goes another apartment/condo building.  The plot near the Forest Glen metro comes to mind here- was a small townhome complex even considered?  There seems to be a disconnect between what is being built and what people want.[/quote]

Why would it make sense to build townhouses next to a Metro station? So that fewer people can live within walking distance of a Metro station, instead of more?[/quote]

Are families with kids not deserving of living near metro stations too?  Not sure why we should only build metro accessible apartments for singles, DINKs, and retirees.  [/quote]
Apartments have 2 and 3 bedroom options.[/quote]

The thing is, [b]2-3BR apts next to a metro station tend to be expensive.[/b] I doubt that most families who can afford those units view apt living as a long term plan. If you don’t build housing that young families want, they will move elsewhere.  I’m not against building more housing, it’s just that a lot of it seems rather thoughtless and developer-driven.[/quote]

Townhouses next to a Metro station would be even more expensive. Detached houses next to a Metro station would be even even more more expensive.[/quote]

Which of these options generates the most property tax revenue per sq ft of land?[/quote]

The "highest tax revenue per sq. foot of land" argument is somewhat misleading. It makes more sense to look at whether a development is net tax negative or positive. The county needs to do a better job estimating how much property tax revenue MOCO collects from the development in comparison to how much the development will cost MOCO for county services (mainly from schools) before approving rezoning request. There are definitely of high density residential developments that are tax negative and low density developments that are tax positive. It really depends of the specifics of individual development projects (eg. location, housing unit types, unit sizes). [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics