“Most of the condos built today are priced for the workforce”

I want to work where this guy is working!!

Condos?… How about some affordable rentals? The rents in the downtown Silver Spring area have skyrocketed over the last several years. The starting rental price for a 1-bedroom at the new Veridian building will be around $1800. We definitely need more workforce housing. Let’s get this done. It sounds like the planning board is putting up roadblocks. “Undermine the sector plan?”- You mean the plan that was established over 8 years ago? A lot has changed during that time.

While I’m on a roll, what about the library? This is a project that seems to be on the path to nowhere. Can we get somebody to move it along? Anybody?

Yeah well, affordable housing for middle-class workers making under $75,000 per year is shrinking fast.

Here’s my conspiracy theory:

Real estate developers make big profits off “luxury” condos tailored to the upper-income crowd. Real estate developers donate lots of $$$$ to political campaigns for county council. The county council dudes lean hard on the Montgomery County Planning department to sweep any affordable housing plans under the rug. The fear of unemployment whether you are a planning executive or an entry level person is real. Also, the planning department heads get a handshake and cash in an envelope from the real estate bigwigs during the lunch meetings.

Now hey, this might be conspiracy theory, tin-foil stuff here. However, I think public officials and bureaucrats can be BOUGHT or they can be THREATENED if they don’t fall in line with the real estate developers.

Editor’s note: This comment was edited for content. — JD (Jun 20, 2008)

To be honest, I don’t really understand why it’s in real estate developers best interests to develop only “luxury” condos; isn’t the market limited, at some point? I guess a lot of it is marketing–buyers don’t want to think they’re being condescended to with econocondos. I suppose people would rather buy a “luxury” studio with granite countertops than a more reasonably sized and/or priced condo with run-of-the-mill appointments.

But is it really impossible to build a new condo in silver spring and sell it for under $300k?

Montgomery County has some of the toughest development standards/restrictions in the country, which is why developers have such a hard time building here (vs. overbuilt sprawling Fairfax & Loudon). That’s another reason that they typically only want to build luxury multi-family–it’s the only product where they can eak a profit that will justify the development.

Think there is a conspiracy where the developers pay off the planning board? That’s laughable. The planning board is exceptionally tough, especially after the oversight debacle in Clarksburg.

And what is wrong with big profits? Developers are in the business to make money like any other capitalist venture. If they don’t make money, they don’t build.

IHY, say you invested in a company’s stock and because it had high profit margins and good fundamentals the value of your stock tripled (or paid big dividends). Because of your position, would you tell the company “no thanks, I don’t want all that tainted money because you made big profits by selling to people who could afford your product”?

That’s exactly the scenario for a company like Home Properties, a publicly held Real Estate Investment Trust that wants to build on the Falkland Chase north tract, and who recently purchased the property/plans where Kettler was going to build two towers on Ripley Street.

I’m with Nancy. The Planning Board missed an opportunity to ensure that some of the folks that work here as teachers, fire fighters, nurses, etc have the chance to live closer to where they work rather than having to commute from outside Montgomery County because they can’t afford to live closer in.

Providing affordable housing in places like Silver Spring that have good access to public transit and walkable destinations offers working families a double win. The housing is more affordable and transportation becomes more affordable as fewer trips require driving.

I hope the board can “tweak the sector plan” to promote affordable housing in Fenton Village

Hmm, what about building nothing but workforce housing, leaving out the fancy units, and still staying within the existing height limit?

If everything that was already on the books — before that height-busting plan — gets built, Silver Spring will be stuffed to the gills with humans. They will have to put gates on Jessup Blair Park and give people numbers to come in.

It’s time to eye some of the strip malls around the county that are already served by buses. Rockville has done some nice things on land that had held 2 malls. The signs say “rent to own,” so it sounds like workforce housing. They even have trees in strips of ground, not in boxes like we have here.

This strategy cound be used elsewhere. Ramp up the bus service, provide plenty of car-sharing like Zipcar, and expand taxi service.

The Falkland proposal is awful — both destructive and unaffordable. Those lovely workforce apartments were built with the landscape intact. The grounds provide a green oasis for the people living in the surrounding hi-rises.

Affordable housing? Has anyone seen the latest foreclosures in Maryland and MoCo…some of the highest in the country. Instant affordable housing if you really want it. The Council is so out of touch with the real world.

The Falklands were not built with the landscape intact, but to the layperson, they might appear that way because the trees they planted then (or grew on their own) are now 70+ years old. Back then at Falkland Chase (and currently in many parts of the country/world) developers and the government alike bulldozed most everything to make it as easy as possible to build. The only reason the meandering creek & ravines are intact is because he lower density likely made it possible to not need to build over these areas. Today, the creek would be piped below grade through the site and buildings would sit on top of it.

Also, the concept of building only affordable housing has proven to be a disaster for this country. Look at the countless examples of “the projects” built in the 50’s - 70’s that are now being torn down and replaced with communities that integrate a wide variety of incomes and social levels. There is a stigma attached to living in “the projects” and that’s what we would have if we built buildings containing only affordable housing.

If we want to have decent, affordable housing in downtown Silver Spring, then the planning board/council will have to raise the (unecessary) building height limit so developers can make the numbers work. Otherwise, we’ll continue to look at the endless blocks of (mostly) crap that still fills much of the downtown area.

The underlying issue is growing inequality, and growing population. A middle-class population has stable birth rates. People who can barely house themselves do more than replace themselves. If everyone had access to basic health care, including contraception, and some sort of halfway decent job, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

“Get a life for yourself before you make another life.” Whatever happened to that poster? Now it’s abstenince-only. Is that partly because it is hard for a person born into low-income circumstances to make a life for him or herself?

Woodsider, a high-rise of any kind looks a lot like a “project” to me, unless it is built next to a park. Looking out and seeing only another building, looking down and seeing concrete — it’s a real drag, if you actually live there. If you have a place in the country for weekends or jet around to lots of cool locations — that’s different.

But to live in a concrete-surrounded, building-surrounded high-rise day after day year after year is not a fate I would wish on anyone.

As an apartment dweller, I don’t see urban living as a horrible fate.

Personally, I’d rather live in a high rise, surrounded by all the conveniences that density has to offer, than be isolated in a suburban setting and reliant on a car to get anywhere or do anything.

Woodsider,

County regulations are not the only culprit here. The real estate bubble economy has done serious damage to the Silver Spring community. The Have-More’s bought up properties with reckless abandon and speculation. The Have-Nots continue to rent in sub-standard buildings and they don’t even have a prayer of buying property in Silver Spring. The Have-Lucky’s are people like you … you bought property when Silver Spring was a dump and BEFORE the real estate bubble epidemic hit the country. You are the Have-Lucky.

BTW, I define a Have-Not as being a single person making UNDER $75,000 per year or a couple with a combined income of $100,000 or less.

There is NO way that average housing prices in Silver Spring should have doubled in value from 2000 to 2006. That’s insane! I am sorry but the Ellsworth Street project, the Discovery HQ, and the Metro station do NOT justify such astronomical real estate price appreciation. Although, if fuel prices continue to climb near the $5.00/gallon range, then I can see rational, calculated reasons for the RE value increase.

But Woodsider never gave me a suitable answer…

Why can’t real estate developers build housing for middle-class income people? County regulations have NOTHING to do with this. It’s simple greed at its capitalist core. It’s easy to sell to wealthy people. It’s easy to make a profit from high-income buyers. The demand for housing is REAL from middle-class people. There is a market for middle-class buyers; however, real estate developers refuse to go that route.

I don’t need a condo with granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances, a built-in flat screen HDTV or a hot tub. I just need a roof over my head and the chance to build some equity. Why can’t developers understand this?

LuvMyHood wrote, “But to live in a concrete-surrounded, building-surrounded high-rise day after day year after year is not a fate I would wish on anyone.”

Consider the residents of Manhattan’s Upper West or Upper East Sides. Many live high above the ground, surrounded by concrete and buildings day after day and year after year and never want to move because life is so fabulous. Their apartments are woth millions because many more people want the opportunity to live in a high rise surrounded by buildings and concrete (and stores, and restaurants, and good access to transit, and close to work, and near amenities, etc).

Of course, in Harlem or the Bronx or other parts of the city there are people living in high-rises surrounded by concrete and tall buildings and life is hard–but this is due to a lot of factors such as concentrated poverty, lousy buildings, local pollution, poor access to quality neighborhood services, etc.

There’s a lot that goes into whether dense, urban living is a positive or negative experience.

IHY,

Developers can only build for middle class people if the county subsidizes the development in the form of tax deferment or credits and then limits the income of the residents. You, like may unfamiliar with the development business believe that by simply leaving out (what are perceived to be) high cost finishes like granite countertops & stainless steel appliances that the price should magically drop to “affordable” levels. The expenses for these finishes are a tiny drop in the bucket of the overall development cost. The cost of the land, the ridiculous holding cost (mortgage) during the three years it takes to get a project out of the ground, the high county taxes and the heigh limit all constitute the bulk of the development cost. Without government breaks, developers simply cannot sell enough units at the low cost you want and still make a buck. Basic economics, not greed.

Clarification: the height limit contributes to the per unit development cost. The more units that will fit on the site, the more the development/land cost can be spread out and hence lower price per unit…or higher if you belive in the greedy developer conspiracy bwaa-haa-haa.

Question for IHY that has been posed so many times by me & so many others: why do you continue to sit in silver spring waiting for prices to plummet (they won’t)? Why don’t you buy where you can afford and build equity there? You are too late to the party in Silver Spring…go where the party is just getting started and stop wasting time.

David, about those Manhattan apts. worth millions. 1. Central Park is in Manhattan. 2. If those apt. owners can afford $1M+ for an apt., they probably travel quite a bit, and/or have another dwelling or a least a timeshare somewhere else. That is a far cry from living high in the sky day in and day out, except for maybe 2 weeks worth of vacations.

Woodsider, height limit is not the only issue. In our small house, shaded with big trees, we only use air conditioning on the hottest days — say after it has been 85 degrees 2 days in a row. When we lived in a hi-rise, we used it far more. I am also not convinced that hi-rise dwellers use less water or generate less sewage. I see no lawn sprinklers around here.

Have you been reading about the coming strain on the electrical grid? Last week’s water main drama was just the beginning. The infrastructure to support the people living in Silver Spring now is crumbling. Pittsburgh has been losing population, there is development opportunity there. Where will the solar panels, solar furnace parts and water pipes come from? Why can’t we make them in those historical manufacturing cities, instead trying to force all those folk to move here and try to become government contractors?

Editor’s note: This comment was edited for content. — JD (Jun 21, 2008)

In today’s (06.23.08) New York Times, Paul Krugman describes the way renters are treated compared with homeowners. http://www.nytimes.com. When I was a renter, I always felt that I was treated as temporary, and as less than a full member of the community.

It was hard to find a place that allowed a cat. It was hard to find trees. The Falklands must be preserved. So must other complexes that have trees. Renters and their companion animals need decent, stable housing where they can feel secure.
I get frustrated when other commenters say that people like IHY should just buy a place somewhere else. I recall being a renter, and telling neighbors in that big building that we had bought a home. I said it very gently, but their faces fell.

We had done some good things with regard to housing, and in some ways it was our karma coming back. But we are indeed “Have Luckys” as IHY so beautifully put it. Plenty of deserving people in Silver Spring are not so lucky.

I do disagree with IHY on at least one point. In my opinion, Silver Spring was never a dump.

The SS 20910/Downtown area had the unfortunate experience of undergoing a revitilization right around the same time that the housing bubble took off. When homes in areas like Manassas and Prince William County started massively inflating, something as simple as Ellsworth Drive (which developers painted in their ads as being equivalent to Georgetown) was enough to double the housing costs in SS.

We are now seeing the slow decline in these inflated prices, but one problem is that a good many people bought new condos in DTSS at the inflated prices. If a developer tries to build a development full of $150k condos, there is going to be serious oppposition from the folks who are paid $400k for a comparable model (with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances!) that is two blocks down the road and don’t want to see their property value decrease even more.

I’ve looked on the reality websites are there are some cheaper, older condos for Sale in the SS area now and then under 200k. It may be a 20 minute walk or a bus ride to the metro instead of a walk, but unfortunately that’s just the way it is.

Easley has a point. The downtown condo properties are not going to crash anytime soon. If gas were $1.00/gallon and crime was out of control, I could see new housing in Silver Spring really plummeting in value. Unfortunately, the energy supply crisis will force even more people to find properties in DTSS where there is close access to Metro rail and a bus terminal. If gasoline prices hit $5.00/gallon before Labor Day…you will see a rush of people renting and buying places in the DTSS area.

My fear is that access to public transportation will be a benefit for the yuppie class only while the low-income people must suffer with automobile expenses and high gas prices for living farther away from public transit nerve centers. People should NOT be priced out of access to public transportation. Especially when it comes to the right of ALL people living within walking distance to the rail system. Public transportation systems are supported by tax paying citizens and the service should be made available to those who live in lower income neighborhoods. I have felt for years that real estate developers and Metro officials have supported each other in bubbling up land value near the stations.

I shiver to think how the Purple Line will affect property prices because someone has a house right along the transportation route. The purple line could widen the gap between the Haves and the Have Nots in Silver Spring.

The lower income must suffer? Is it suffering to not be able to live in downtown Silver Spring but to have to live a few metro stops away? Or a five minute bus ride away? No one is suffering in Long Branch, Takoma Park, Langley Park, Glenmont, West Hyattsville, New Carrollton or the numerous other areas that are heavily served by public transportation both rail and bus. The central city will always have the highest priced housing because convenience has a value in our capitalistic economy. In Manhattan, everyone wants to live on the upper east/west side, but if you can only afford harlem, that’s where you live.

Long Branch and Langley Park will be stripped of their small-scale, relatively affordable apts. if the Purple Line is built. Remember, development in those areas is a major and constant part of the ever-shifting rationale for that project. And “development” usually means real estate redevelopment — as in bigger, taller, more expensive, fewer trees that grow in the ground.

Regarding Glenmont, a developer floated a plan to tear down part of the Privacy World apts. and replace with mixed-use, trees-in-boxes development. Privacy World has trees between the buildings. Meahwhile, the run-down Glenmont Shopping Center just sits there.

I agree it is important to have housing close to transit stations that is affordable for people with low and moderate-incomes, but is it really a forgone conclusion that Long Branch and Langley Park will be stripped of affordable housing if Purple Line stations are built?

Why not push our elected officials and local planners to ensure that plans for transit oriented development around the new stations include mixed income housing. Montgomery County, at least, which created the moderately priced dwelling unit program has historically been more attuned to these issues than other jurisdictions around the country.

Some good resources on promoting affordable housing near transit can be found on the website for the Center for Transit Oriented Development (see http://www.reconnectingamerica.org)

The reason places like DTSS and other metro served centers doubled in value over the last several years is because they are served by metro and are commercial centers. Housing went up in general, but especially if you look at what’s happening with gasoline prices, it’s no wonder they went up. The real wonder is why it took so long for these centers to get developed. Which leads to another reason the prices jumped so much, pent-up demand. If there was more housing at these transit centers, luxury or not, the market would correct itself by lowering prices. Look at the price declines in the DC condo market due to overbuilding. Let’s get more housing built period because people equal vitality and in case anyone hasn’t noticed, our economy isn’t exactly as robust as it was a few years ago.

It’s the scarcity of good public transportation options (Purple line) that artificially inflate prices…supply & demand
NYC has the most subway stops of any transit system world wide and I don’t think Bushwick or Brownsville (Brooklyn) are doing as well as the Upperwest side or Soho (Manhattan)

IHY said: “My fear is that access to public transportation will be a benefit for the yuppie class only while the low-income people must suffer with automobile expenses and high gas prices for living farther away from public transit nerve centers. People should NOT be priced out of access to public transportation.”

I ride the bus to and from work every day for convenience, cost and environmental reasons. I observe the opposite of your argument– most of the bus riders are not rich folks, at all. There are more kinds of public transportation out there than just the Metro.

And the popular argument against the Purple Line seems to be that it will depress property values along its route (I can’t imagine there’s another reason for all those “NO TRAIN ON WAYNE” signs).

Plenty of people see desirability in public transportation, enough to pay a premium for it. But I suspect many people who are required to use it for economic reasons would much rather drive, if they had the resources to do.