Reply to How do we end Montgomery County socialism?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
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.  [/quote]

The thing is, the county has the MPDU program so if you build a development, you _must_ set aside some (10-15%) of units for affordable housing. The developers are doing that -- they are required to. It seems like a reasonable solution, or are you saying they should up that percentage?

My issue is all the development we see is only residential. You need a mix. Offices are great, because they pay taxes, provide jobs, and don't use many services (the office building doesn't have kids in school). I guess the saying the county is anti-business is holding true as most of the companies seem to be setting up shop in NoVa not MoCo. Then the office parks are getting converted to residential.[/quote]

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