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The Elrich Blog 
(El Blog de El·Rich)

Let's put what is being discussed in perspective: Last Fall, the County government was presented with an evaluation that showed that almost 8,000 apartment units were up for condo conversion. These comprise lower middle class, working class, and middle class apartments that, after conversion, will no longer be affordable to these renters. Those 8,000 units are equal to almost 20 years of MPDU (moderately priced dwelling units) produced in new construction. In short, we could lose in one year what we'll create with the County's so-called bold, innovative programs over the next 20 years. The conversion of a single large rental complex of 400 units alone could result in the loss of more units than the annual production of MPDUs.

If the additional, newly-constructed "workforce" housing units are added to the mix--an addition of maybe 100 units a year--then it will only take 16 years to replace the units lost to condo conversion THIS year.

Now consider that almost 1,000 new teachers were hired by the County this year, among other new employees in the County whose incomes will qualify them for "workforce" housing. You can quickly see how insignificant the existing workforce housing initiative is relative to the need.

The reality is that the basic problem is not a lack of new construction, it's a loss of existing housing stock. It's not new poor people who can't find housing here that's the problem, it's that people who have been living here are being pushed out of their housing. The crisis is exacerbated by a government that is unwilling to do anything to prevent the loss of affordable housing.

Between condo conversions and rent increases of between 10 and 30 percent, affordable housing is vanishing, and at a far faster rate than it can be replaced. Property owners made profits when units offered affordable rents, but now they find they can make far more money by converting the properties to condominiums or giving tenants extraordinary rent increases--both of which displace lower income people. This year in Takoma Park, a property owner who purchased an apartment building 2 years ago at a cost of $25,000 per one-bedroom unit offered to sell those units to the tenants who occupied them at over $200,000 a piece!

But relying on the construction of new units to replace converted units is wholly unrealistic. It is unlikely that new housing units can be built at the same cost as existing units were, so massive subsidies will be needed to produce anything affordable. And tragically for those most in need, there is nothing proposed to be built under any scenario for people whose incomes are low-income. Moreover, with 15,000 people on its newly opened waiting list, the Housing Opportunties Commission is in no position to provide a safety net for them. Every condo conversion, every excessive rent increase only exacerbates the problem for low-income families.

I've talked with numerous housing leaders who feel that a program that works to preserve existing units that would otherwise be converted to condos or priced beyond the reach of middle class citizens would maintain a larger stock of affordable housing than one that tries to produce the same number of new units through new construction, because housing units can be purchased for less money than they can be built.

Yet Nancy Trejos' article suggests that it is politically safer to try to frame this problem in terms of the need for new construction. Is it a coincidence that such a strategy is beneficial to the development industry, which would receive major density bonuses for a trickle of affordable units?

And yet no scheme, no matter what the density bonuses offered to developers, will effectively replace what is being lost. Moreover, for the average citizen, the policy of giving developers density bonuses in exchange for a few affordable unites comes at a price, because density bonuses mean more housing that requires essential public services (schools, road, fire, police) that the public has to pay for. One could almost argue that it would be cheaper for taxpayers to directly construct 13 affordable units than have a developer build 113 total units just to get those 13 affordable ones.

We would be better off letting the market determine the price of new construction for higher end homes and focus our energies on preventing the loss of what affordable units that exist. We need to begin discussing how to develop policies to do just that.

I won't claim that at the end of any year, we'd have more affordable units than I started with, but we will have more units than we'd get by policies that focus on production rather than preservation. Under the County's current policies, the affordable housing supply is rapidly vanishing.

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July 27, 2006--Royce Hanson

July 20, 2006

About the fire and rescue services -- We have no excess capacity. In fact, 28 or 31 units are operating beyond the response threshold, meaning they're being asked to do more than they were designed, equipped and staffed to do.

Police - The County has 1.1 officers per 1000 residents. This is below local, regional and national averages and, most importantly, below the number that they believe they need, which is 2.0 officers per thousand. They're getting about 50 new recruits a year, but losing veterans, so the ability to expand to meet the need is very, very slow.

Public Safety and AGP/APFO
Staff concludes that adding a Public Safety Component to the Adequate Public Facilities Test would lead to a moratorium on development. Fire and Rescue services says they "easily" need 12 additional stations beyond the 31, but even 12 aren't enough to insure a 12 minute response time throughout the County. We've got 4 opening in the next 4 years-- the first stations built since 1981.

Staff concludes that so much as been approved and we're so far behind that a moratorium would have no real impact on pubic safety for a considerable period.

...MORE...

April 25, 2006

Beltway Widening - Not content with the ICC, the State now wants to widen the Beltway. How 'bout money for the Inner Purple Line, the Corridor Cities Transit Way, expansion of Metro and the public transportation improvements that we need? I served on the County Task Force on the Transportation and this road project didn't make the list of County priorities. There are literally billions of dollars of unmet transportation needs, including 6 billion in roads exclusive of the ICC, that ranked ahead of this project. But apparently the Governor and his staff are in love with paving machinery.

April 7, 2006

Today was a beautiful day for a tour of historic Silver Spring. I had the chance to walk along Georgia Ave. and received a real education in the history of the buildings and the town - many thanks to Marci, George, Mary and Jerry. There's a lot more to the architecture than you get from a from driving by, or from a quick walk down the street. I found that stopping to look at the buildings, the details and the way they fit together makes you realize that there's a lot more than you would think at first glance. It was particularly evident in looking at the old photographs of many of the buildings.

April 3, 2006

Montgomery County Democrats in the General Assembly lost their nerve when they split a vote on a bill put forward by State Senator Sharon Grosfeld to place safeguards against the conversion of rental properties to condominiums.

This bill is a real loss. We are faced with thousands of units being converted to condominiums, displacing thousands of families in the County. Amazingly, this bill was killed by the Democratic County delegation on a 12-12 vote!

March 26, 2006

Now the Planning Board has started on its new path of involving the citizenry with a campaign of outreach, starting with a survey to ask for your priorities. There is one problem: The survey begins with the assumption that the county will add 213,000 people in the next 25 years, so all of the questions ask how you'd like to accommodate that growth....MORE...