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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My vote will be based on who is least likely to favor the widespread elimination of SFH zoning, and so I'm voting for Jawando. [/quote]

+1 Plus Jawando voted against the absurd tax breaks for for-profit developers that have contributed to the budgetary crisis in the county. [/quote]

Even more of a reason to vote for him then [/quote]

The new PILOT program hasn't even kicked in yet.  It provides tax breaks for for-profit AND non-profit builders who build more affordable housing by converting commercial properties to residential.  Any budgetary crisis we are facing now doesn't stem from this at all.

The budget crisis comes from several things:
1) state mandate to fund MCPS at certain levels (maintenance of effort).  Yet enrollment is now declining, so it should be seen as a ceiling not a floor. 
2) state distribution of more costs onto the counties (like teacher retirement costs)
3) Blueprint for Maryland's Future
4) Maryland Police Accountability Act shifted new mandatory disciplinary structures to the counties, another unfunded mandate
5) unchecked compensation (including benefits) growth for employees. 
[/quote]

There’s a lot of misinformation about the PILOTs here.

First, they don’t do much for affordability. The office conversion PILOT’s affordability program is for households earning 120 percent of area median income. That translates into an annual income of about $165,000 a year, which implies an affordable rent of about $4,400 a month. Friedson claimed this was for teachers, but no teacher makes $165,000. Moreover, if you pay attention to the market, new apartments tend to deliver at around $4,400 a month for a two bedroom anyway, so the market appears to be targeting 120 percent of AMI. The PILOTs are handing out money for things developers build anyway.

Second, the officer conversion PILOT and other PILOTs are already in effect. Friedson always puts these forward on an expedited basis. Apparently, in his view, it’s an emergency when a developer has to pay taxes. Uptake of the PILOTs has been slow. Although they appear to be broadly applicable, they’re only valuable to developers who already have land. The Metro PILOT, for example, was valuable only to the developer who had construction rights already. That developer also gave the maximum donation to Friedson during his council race. The PILOTs are only valuable if you already own land because future land sales bake the value of the PILOT into the price of the land. In other words, the PILOTs make land more expensive, so the big winners are land speculators, not renters or even developers (unless you’re one of the developers lucky enough to get a PILOT for your project after you built the land).

Finally, the PILOTs are terrible for stimulating development. They reward people for waiting too long to sell or develop their land, and they bail out people who make bad land deals. This drives land prices (which drives up housing prices) and signals to the market that if they wait too long to do something with their land the county will come along with a bailout. We need development to happen faster. The PILOTs encourage the opposite behavior. [/quote]

My point was "tax breaks for for profit developers" isn't what's crushed the budget.  Period.

[/quote]

It’s created a massive unfunded liability for the sole benefit of donors to one the executive candidates. For that reason alone, I won’t vote for Friedson. Glass also voted for these, but I don’t see a big risk that he’ll expand these programs, so I’m on the fence about him. [/quote]

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