Reply to Montgomery County zoning: Council wants to change zoning throughout the county to multi-family

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Anonymous wrote:

Rents are cheap in comparison to the rest of the DMV or at least DC and VA. Rents are cheap in comparison to salaries which is the more important metric.

Rents might be cheap in comparison to your salary.

But almost all of the county's renters with household incomes below 50% of area median income (about $96,300 for a family of 3) are cost-burdened. And most of those spend more than 50% of their annual income (before taxes) on rent. Speaking of more important metrics.[/quote]

Economically there are plenty of less expensive rentals available in other areas of the county. These may not be as desirable as the ones that they would prefer but they cost less. They are available and sitting empty. You need to have the most desirable rentals to become unaffordable for most people in order to maintain the economic health of the other areas in the county. Its is not fiscally sound for the county to artificially try to push rental costs down when it has vacant inventory and declining revenues.

Ironically, the market may get in the county's desire to push down rental costs. Renting an ADU is often far less desirable than renting your own apartment, TH or SFH. You have to really, really want a location or [b]have no other options. [/b]In the most desirable areas like Bethesda, its pretty questionable that there are many owners chomping at the but to have a long term tenant living in their backyard. Chances are that the more desirable areas will not have owners building ADUs go serve the greater good of giving low income people access to Bethesda. In fact pigs may fly before that happens. The people who will jump on it are those landlords in Wheaton that serve or prey upon people with fewer options. 
[/quote]

This.

And it is partially why Montgomery County politicians got behind this.  They want to ensure a solid housing supply for recent immigrants.  The county elite must want to ensure they have a solid supply of low wage employees.  I can’t imagine why else people would think this is a good idea.  That, plus the many landlords that will benefit from the additional income.

There are definitely plenty of rental options available in Montgomery County.  Expanding the ADU provisions was not necessary.  [/quote]

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