Reply to MOCO - County Wide Upzoning, Everywhere

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Anyone only reading through the final report and the state law really should check the video of Monday's meeting.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=55h90lVpZJI

The Attainable Housing portion of the meeting starts at 2:10 and goes for just under an hour.  As seen in the report, the voiced concerns of residents are briefly mentioned in summary and rather summarily dismissed.  If there was any doubt that these concerns are valid, all one has to do is listen to the introductions by the council and planning chair.  The remainder was unsurprising, given the Council makeup and their recent appointment of the Planning Board (one wonders if the reaction to the scandal had more to do with packing the Board with more decidedly pro-Thrive/pro-development interests in the runup to adoption).

For those complaining about the process, met by comments about the several community meetings in the last couple of years, your thoughts still are valid, though it may not matter from a strictly legal sense.  Ask when, along the timeline of those meetings, the full impact was addressed.  Not just examples of multiplex housing with reference to the pattern book for continuity with the previously-built community, but fully-built-out properties along the corridors (19-unit to 24-unit stacked flats with maximal allowance for bulk/minimal adherence to to-be setbacks, etc.).  The answer would not include those community meetings, as much of the higher-impact recommendations only recently were introduced to the document (which also does not do the job of presenting those maximal buildouts for common understanding), as was the state legislation.  It is overwhelmingly likely that community input would be significantly different than was garnered in those already-pandemic-limited interactions.

The dog and pony was comically completed towards the end of the presentation (prior to the Council committee's few questions) with the planning chair repeatedly nodding at the intern's earnest comments about research she had conducted to find favorable examples of jurisdictions that had pursued similar changes.  Of course, there had been no critical review of this that would highlight the dissimilarities to that which is being proposed, here.  Nor was there any public comment/rebuttal/presentation of opposing viewpoints.

The Council PHP Committee will have 2 working sessions in July, beginning on the 8th.  I expect they will have limited public comment, with staff and supporters prepped alternately to present stories of hardship finding desired housing to garner sympathy and dismissive remarks to any concerns voiced, without opportunity for rebuttal/debate.  A few half-hearted questions may be presented, intentionally phrased to allow sidestepping of any more troublesome answer.  (E.g., "Can we get an idea of the student generation rates?" to "represent" community concerns about school crowding, met with a pat answer that does nothing to project that overcrowding, the associated costs of building and the infeasibility of land acquisition for schools, with a buildout on the scale envisioned that would "correct" the perceived shortage of housing opportunities in the affected areas -- perhaps with a platitudinous "the County has established processes to address school system needs" thrown in.)  Having completed that pro forma over the summer, while many are vacationing, they can claim to have completed everything appropriately for the Council vote in the fall.

That is a done deal, short of near-Kenya-level in-the-streets objections, and I don't see the MoCo residents, majority or no, who would have objections having the stomach for anything close to that.[/quote]

I am really not following you here at all.  That being said, I do appreciate the link to the video.  I will watch![/quote]

Glad to provide the video.  The late addition of scope and density options along with the stacked effects with recent state legislation mean that they have not properly engaged the community in the process.  The words of the Council and Planning Board chair make it obvious that they are intent on doing things this way, [b]pushing it through with the minimum community awareness possible [/b]of fullest impact and disregarding voiced concerns from those who might independently have made themselves aware enough to have formed such thoughts from reasonable bases.

There are things that could be done to address those concerns, such as those for schools and infrastructure or those regarding the relative irreversability of the uncapped/wholesale/sweeping changes should they prove not in the best interests of the populace, while continuing to promote housing capacity aims.  However, these will not be done, and they will make sure it is delivered well before the next County Council election cycle.[/quote]

What more do you think should be happening to make the community aware?

I watched the video and read the report.  From that, I can tell that MoCo sent press releases that resulted in news articles in a lot of publications, including the Washington Post.  They have a robust website and social media campaign.  They held several community meetings (post-pandemic) and indicated that they plan several more- in the affected communities--in the coming months.

Sincerely, what more do you think they should do?[/quote]

These community meetings are performative. They are not gathering data or changing anything based on citizen feedback. My main concern is the environmental disaster caused when all the green space is ripped out to build driveways and parking lots. This is passed off as environmentally a net positive and it’s not. There are lots of places to build condos but the council wants no limits on development except in their neighborhoods. Fact.[/quote]

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