Reply to Schools near metro will get more housing without overcrowding relief

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Schools near metro will get more housing without overcrowding relief"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The county needs more housing without more traffic; this is a win. MCPS needs to better use the capacity they have; that's on the BOE. Or something like that.[/quote]

This is either a troll response or someone with no kids in MCPS. First of all, there is a baked-in assumption that mixed-income and low-income housing residents don't own cars if they are walking distance to public transportation. [b]As a result, new buildings often have far fewer parking spaces than they do units.[/b] However, the assumptions here are not actually true, particularly post-covid. All of the amenities that make it possible for white collar professionals to comfortably work from home and have their take-out, groceries, and office supplies delivered to their door? Those are all brought by residents of multi-family dwellings using their own personal vehicles. In the gig economy, a working class family needs a car, and needs somewhere to park it.

[b]Further, in most of these neighborhoods, there is no capacity to use. Schools at all levels are giving up playground and outdoor space to make room for portable classrooms. The failure of our municipal/county leadership to work with MCPS to deal with these issues is not only troubling[/b], but ultimately will damage any nascent YIMBY movement that would have otherwise developed.

Basically, the YIMBY approach in MoCo is one of "heightening the differences." Rather than making things better for everyone by building enough parking or working with the school district to absorb capacity, the approach is to make everyone so miserable that they start riding public transportation because the roads are so gridlocked with InstaCart drivers that regular residents can't get out of the neighborhoods. [/quote]

Not only is it less parking than units, it’s as if they somehow think none of the residents will ever have guest who travel by car.

And as for free space in the schools, MCPS already has several boundary studies in the works/planned and BOE member talking about needing to use that space.  However, there is not enough free space to account for all the overcrowding that currently exist. [/quote]

+1 The boundary studies will at best move kids around so that the overcrowding is slightly more equal. But the densest parts of county where all of this new development is planned simply does not have available land for new schools. Existing schools are already using their entire footprint, including taking away outdoor space.

At the end of the day, what is planned is simply not smart growth. It's growth for the sake of growth, and growth for the sake of enriching developers and short-term power for the elected officials who take developer money, but it's not anything resembling smart growth.[/quote]

Adding additional housing near transit actually is smart growth.

If schools are your concern, then you should advocate for additional funding for schools - and also advocate for building taller schools.

A policy of "we won't add housing near transit because there's no space for schools" would be a bad policy.[/quote]

Bad policy is building more housing without the corresponding infrastructure necessary to support that housing.  [/quote]

So focus on adding the corresponding infrastructure.

The alternatives to adding housing that is near transit are:

1. Not adding housing
2. Adding housing that is not near transit

Both of those alternatives are worse than adding housing that is near transit.[/quote]

Not adding housing in an already over-crowded area is perfectly fine.

Honestly, look at the oversupply of apartments / condos on the market right now.  There are plenty of available units.

There is a shortage of affordable single family homes in MoCo.  But no shortage of apartments and condos.  [/quote]

It's not possible to have a serious discussion of housing policy with someone who denies that there is a housing shortage.[/quote]

Both of you are correct. There is not an overall shortage of housing in MoCo. There is a shortage of low-income housing, and of SFHs for those who want them.

The problem is that new developments are not meeting either of those needs. So it is development for the sake or enriching developers, but not meeting the needs of the community. [/quote]

The new developments are meeting the housing needs of the people who live in the new developments, and the people who live in the new developments are part of the community.
[/quote]

Eh, the people who can afford the shiny new units can afford plenty of other places too. They just *want* to live here in the new building. Which is fine.  But let’s not pretend more of these high priced condo/apt buildings are needed.[/quote]

Who are you to decide what people do or don't *need* in the way of housing- or what they can afford, or what they should spend their housing budget on? Do you *need* to live in a neighborhood where everyone lives in the same housing type as you?[/quote]

Are these new expensive apt/condo buildings really filling a gap though? There are already vacancies in similar buildings nearby. [b] None of this “growth” or development really seems all that thoughtful. [/b] Just development for the sake of development. Shrug. [/quote]

It most definitely is not thoughtful development.

There are plenty of vacant apartments and condos in MoCo.  No great need for more.

[/quote]

It is not possible to have a serious discussion about housing policy with anyone who denies that there is a housing shortage.[/quote]

No one is denying there is an overall housing shortage- of SFHs and townhouses. I’ve seen no data to show there is a shortage of 1-2 BR condos and apts.   Do you have some?  Because these are what primary are being built.  If you look in Redfin there are currently hundreds of apts available for rent in silver spring and Wheaton.  A better use for that Forest Glen plot would be a smaller townhome development- but I’m guessing that fewer units would mean less profits?[/quote]

It is not possible to have a serious discussion about housing policy with anyone who uses apartment advertisements to deny that there is a housing shortage.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics