There’s no right in the Constitution that says that when you’re 65, you get to stop working and have everyone else pay your way. There’s no right in the Constitution that says that you get to live where-ever you want to at the government’s expense.

I’m also a bit more optomistic about the prospects of Mr. and Mrs. Happy Homeonwer who are now retired and facing rising property taxes along with rising property values. What’s to say they have no retirement savings? If they’re lucky they may even have one of those defined benefit pensions that are no longer offered to my generation of workers. Also, they could tap into their home equity through a reverse mortgage, or they could choose to sell their home at 10 times what they paid for it, move to a home that requires less upkeep or is in a more accomodating climate or to be closer to the grandkids or whatever, and pocket the savings.To be sure, its not an easy decision to move but it is one that many people make of their own volition and there’s no injustice to it

That said, there are folks who face a rising property tax burden and don’t have money saved up or cannot afford to cash in on their equity and there should be a role for a property tax circuit breaker or some other mitigation so that these residents can remain in their homes and stay aflout. I’m not sure what measures are in place in Montgomery County, perhaps someone else can provide more information.

Say that Mr. & Ms. Happy Homeowner love their home and want to live there forever. Their incomes will probably fluctuate over time. When they reach the point of retirement, their household income would decrease. If their property values skyrocket, they may need to remain in the paid workforce — keeping jobs away from younger workers — just to pay their property taxes.

A progressive income tax for all our government needs would be far better than this excessive reliance on the property tax. Pumping any given piece of land for maximum property value flies in the face of community stability and middle-class homeownership. Furthermore, I don’t know anyone who brags about the way the potential sale price of their home has ballooned. Instead they say “I couldn’t buy my own house if I were buying today.”

I would oppose any effort to change the existing residential zoning of East Silver Spring in response to this land assemblage project or a Purple Line stop at the future library, and my sentiments are echoed in the ESS Master Plan, which recommends that the existing land use pattern should remain essentially the same (p. 26), confirms the existing residential zoning (p 26) and recommends that the County retain the existing single-family detached character throughout most of East Silver Springas well as the existing mix and distribution of apartment uses (p 26).

Maybe I’m naive, or just optimistic by nature, but I project enduring support amongst our local officials for land use planning that encourages more dense development in Fenton Village, while respecting the transition between the central business district and adjcent single-family neighborhoods (see p. 2 of the Silver Spring CBD Sector Plan) and preserving the residential character of ESS.

As for the spector of emininant domain being used to purchase land for private development projects, call me naive again if you’d like but I don’t see that happening either. A recent (and very controversial) Supreme Court decision did expand the authority of eminant domain beyond its traditional function of acquiring property for public projects (new highways, expanded fire stations, and the like). I just don’t envision this happening in the neighborhood.

The DC area is replete with examples of intense development around transit stations co-existing with established residential neighborhoods. (See the Rosslyn-Balston Corridor, Bethesda, Takoma and Columbia Heights). Life may not be perfect in these neighborhoods, but nor has TOD lead to apartment projects displacing blocks of single family homes. Rather, access to amenities and property values have surged in these areas and the residents have found themselves well-housed indeed.

If you wanted to encourage more people to read, you’d have the county just distribute (far more convenient to use) Amazon Kindles to interested parties at a subsidized price, and then work out some sort of on-going new content deal with publishers. I bet it’d be cheaper than paying for and maintaining the new library. Plus, it’d allow the county to control what people read, so as to better educate them away from any possible right-wing tendencies!

(That was half a joke, and half not. I’m a used book kinda-guy myself.)