Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It means homes in Potomac and Trivalah on two acres will be worth a fortune in 2050. Bethesda and Rockville will be epic slums.

Look at history of Coop City in Bronx. Same concept used in 1970s

Why ?

Rockville has it's own city council and it's land use isn't governed by the Montgomery County council. I assume she means the area surrounding the city of Rockville but a lot of people use Rockville to mean vast areas of land that include like 1/5th of the county.

Anonymous wrote:Buy a home in a neighborhood with protective covenants that prevent property owners from subdividing existing lots and disallow the construction of multifamily housing

It worked to keep the blacks and jews out!

Anonymous wrote:OP look for properties that are in a historic districted or a covenanted neighborhood or block that would prevent your neighbors from being rezoned from SFH

Ty. My concern is these neighborhoods are pretty tiny. Our current neighborhood in DC feels far larger than some of these CC and Bethesda subdivisions. The impact of crappy development would be noticeable (pardon my french)

OP look for properties that are in a historic districted or a covenanted neighborhood or block that would prevent your neighbors from being rezoned from SFH

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP-

I've already posted here (re buying away from the commercial strips), but I have one more word of advice. If you really want more certainty on being surrounded by SFHs, you should target properties surrounded by houses that have already been improved. Smaller or older housing stock will be the very first homes to be bought up as multifamily housing. If you buy on a street where all the homes have been redeveloped or at least are large and in good shape, the property value will be too high for investors looking to build multi-family housing. FWIW, that's my advice.

Thank you. We are looking at a property like this--I can't imagine anyone knocking down the neighboring houses (already "improved") for apartment buildings anytime soon. But I like the pleasant feel of the neighborhood too--I'm a walker and I like being able to identify a neighbor with a home for example (apartments are more anonymous) and that would be changed if all the older homes on smaller lots are turned into multiplexes . How far from Wisconsin or Ct are we talking for this BRT? A street in, or a neighborhood in?

No one really knows yet. And no one knows if MOCO will be able to overrule the town municipalities zoning rules that are separate from MOCO.
But with the amount of lawyers that live in these SFH neighborhoods, it will be interesting! I would buy if you find a house you like. Find out though if the neighborhood has it's own building rights or if it just has to follow MOCO.

Anonymous wrote:Buy a home in a neighborhood with protective covenants that prevent property owners from subdividing existing lots and disallow the construction of multifamily housing

People are saying those could be overriden? I love the idea of protective covenants

Anonymous wrote:Hi OP-

I've already posted here (re buying away from the commercial strips), but I have one more word of advice. If you really want more certainty on being surrounded by SFHs, you should target properties surrounded by houses that have already been improved. Smaller or older housing stock will be the very first homes to be bought up as multifamily housing. If you buy on a street where all the homes have been redeveloped or at least are large and in good shape, the property value will be too high for investors looking to build multi-family housing. FWIW, that's my advice.

Thank you. We are looking at a property like this--I can't imagine anyone knocking down the neighboring houses (already "improved") for apartment buildings anytime soon. But I like the pleasant feel of the neighborhood too--I'm a walker and I like being able to identify a neighbor with a home for example (apartments are more anonymous) and that would be changed if all the older homes on smaller lots are turned into multiplexes . How far from Wisconsin or Ct are we talking for this BRT? A street in, or a neighborhood in?

Buy a home in a neighborhood with protective covenants that prevent property owners from subdividing existing lots and disallow the construction of multifamily housing

Hi OP-

I've already posted here (re buying away from the commercial strips), but I have one more word of advice. If you really want more certainty on being surrounded by SFHs, you should target properties surrounded by houses that have already been improved. Smaller or older housing stock will be the very first homes to be bought up as multifamily housing. If you buy on a street where all the homes have been redeveloped or at least are large and in good shape, the property value will be too high for investors looking to build multi-family housing. FWIW, that's my advice.

Anonymous wrote:It means homes in Potomac and Trivalah on two acres will be worth a fortune in 2050. Bethesda and Rockville will be epic slums.

Look at history of Coop City in Bronx. Same concept used in 1970s

Why ?

Anonymous wrote:Putting a 6-8 units apartment building in Kenwood neighborhood?

River Road is a high priority for this urban corridor I believe.

Anonymous wrote:Putting a 6-8 units apartment building in Kenwood neighborhood?

I’ll supply free popcorn for that show.

Anonymous wrote:You know how when you rent an apartment, you can’t do things to it as if you owned it? Well, under zoning, you are limited to what you can do in your own property. With Thrive, you’ll be able to build duplexes etc on your own property and your neighbors won’t be able to stop you. A win for individual property rights

A win for developers. They will try to tear down the SFH in these neighborhoods to make duplex, fourplex, etc for "attainable housing". They have moved away from using affordable housing. So a family can move into one level of these multi family houses for the cost of at least $1M+ which is hardly attainable for this missing middle they are trying to solve for.
The impact on these neighborhoods is yet to be determined on who has the right to do this. There are neighborhoods now that are trying to tighten development restrictions if they have control over their municipality. For example, Village of Drummond, Somerset, Chevy Chase Village, Martins Addition have their own building requirements in addition to MOCO however, I'm not sure it's known if the county can overrule those.
There will be more urban density along Wisconsin corridor and traffic. However, if ultimately you are able to turn your land into fourplexes, etc it's not bad for property values.
As long as the developers can charge what they want for them, they would be huge money makers unfortunately.

Anonymous wrote:There is zero shortage of housing. If anything we have to much, Take my Potomac block average home has 3 people in house.

Every house my block has 6-8 bedrooms and 4-7 baths.

Ever house has a full finished basement with bath.

So how is there a shortage? The shortage exists only cause kids don’t want to live at home and/or tax codes and lack of smaller suitable retirement homes mean people live in too much home.

I have five empty bedrooms! I still use them somewhat as one kid is moving home after college and older still single and stays over 2-3 weeks a year and younger one at home. And I have a home office.

But in 10 years be me and wife paid off home kids long gone. Like my current neighbor who is 82 says my house is paid off, property taxes 13k and insurance 2k which is 16k a year or $1,333 a month. Where is he moving to? An illegal studio apt in a basement costs more.

We need to figure a way to make it worthwhile for folks in bigger houses to downsize.

GTFO.