Reply to How do we end Montgomery County socialism?

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[quote=Anonymous]Montgomery County's problem is not "socialism" It's socialism for real estate developers.

I would instead love to see MoCo lead the way with a high tax/high reward system like Northern Europe has. 
You can lure big companies here with good infrastructure and things to make it a thriving place for high skilled employees. Virginia is beating us because they actually have this infrastructure. They've got the Silver Line, they have two airports, they have a feeder system of IT professionals and lots of amenities. Unfortunately, they have a lot of highways and traffic and soulless planned office park-type communities, which - if that's your thing, then whatever.

Montgomery County has more character, but it can't get its ish together. We can't even build the Purple Line because every real estate developer wants to see how much they can profit off of it and that causes pushback from residents. Rather than letting the rail be integrated into the communities. We could have a high speed monorail down 270 but instead Larry Hogan and his asphalt company buddies want to expand highways. We don't have enough good infrastructure to lure in companies and their employees, so the only bait we can come up with is tax breaks and corporate welfare - not good.

At the root of this problem is our socialism for developers, rugged F-You capitalism for everyone else including small businesses. We roll out the red carpet for developers with low taxes, breaks on impact fees, and rezoning the crap out of everywhere when we're not even building the units we zoned for. The last thing MoCo needs is another high rise development with bottom floor retail and high end single bedroom units. The housing crisis is not for single young professionals looking to rent a luxury apartment for $2K+ a month - the housing crisis is for families looking for a place to purchase and to settle down. There is a lack of affordable, multi-bedroom family style units. We can and should build more duplexes and townhouses, yes, but the type we have are prohibitively expensive and are usually from teardowns of older single family homes that were cheaper. We are zoned beyond carrying capacity [b]for the infrastructure we have built[/b] it's not NIMBYism to want those who profit from real estate development to, god forbid, help PAY for the infrastructure and social services that attract diverse taxpaying residents here.

But instead, we keep electing the same type of councilmembers - people bought off by developers, offering them tax breaks, claiming if we just zone for X more units and offer Y tax incentives then we'll help the housing crisis, when the only type of housing that comes with it is not the type of housing there is an actual demand for. So we instead get a lot of glitzy high rise apartments that no one who actually wants to STAY in Moco can afford or wants to live in long term, with retail space that small biz can't afford to rent and then ends up being filled with more Chipotles and Starbucks. It's quite sad.

He's not perfect, but I'll be voting for Elrich again because he's the ONLY politician that has pushed back against this developer grift. He's the only thing standing between MoCo and some nondescript soulless asphalt hellscape. [/quote]

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