Jaime Ciavarra has written an article for today’s Gazette headlined “What is the price of progress?“:
John Small, 81, has lived in a two-bedroom, red brick apartment in Gaithersburg for more than half of his life.
He watched his two children grow up there. His church, grocery store and mechanic are just down the street. More than 41 years worth of memories adorn the apartment’s beige walls.
But Small — who now lives on a fixed income of about $4,000 a month and pays $774 in monthly rent — could be losing his home in the name of progress.
Broadstone Apartments on West Deer Park Road, the 41-year-old rental complex where Small lives, is slated for redevelopment, meaning his home and those of 350 other families could be demolished to make way for townhouses, condominiums and a new apartment building.
The article goes on (and on) in this vein. But one major question that goes unaddressed is: What, specifically, does anyone propose be done about this problem? Do the Gazette, and the housing advocates they quote, propose that the many “affordable” apartments in central Gaithersburg be left untouched in perpetuity? Is this land forever to be “rent controlled”? By what mechanism do the advocates propose to mandate that an inexhaustible supply of low-rent apartments will forever be available in this part of town?
And why in this part of town? Should there not be $799/month apartments in Crown Farm, Watkins Mill or even Kentlands as well? What is special about the older parts of town that the apartments there have to be so inexpensive? Certainly it isn’t because of the large number of low-income jobs available or the excellent public transportation in Olde Towne. Could it simply be that central Gaithersburg needs to be preserved as a place for the economically disadvantaged to live because so much of the rest of the City has been allowed to be built out without any such requirement? Have the years of disinvestment in Olde Towne, engendered in no small part by the great Niagara of cash flowing into the sure-thing, far-from-affordable greenfield developments elsewhere in the City, sealed Olde Towne’s fate? If yes, perhaps it is time to start discussing how property owners will be compensated for this taking. If not, then I think that we need to hear more about practical proposals for maintaining the availability of $799/month apartments elsewhere in the City, or maybe — just maybe — a little less about any specific obligation property owners may have to provide units at such rates.
Update: Reading the print edition of the Gazette this morning, I note another passage, and a letter from AIM. First, from the above-cited article,
‘‘I think we’re looking at a dynamic process that we’ll adapt as we need to,” Sesma said. ‘‘Our growth will include all segments of the population.”
But at 81, John Small doesn’t want to move. Still, he’s been consolidating his old scrapbooks and World War II memorabilia just in case.
‘‘I’m not any kind of a real estate expert,” he said. ‘‘What I am is an old settler fighting for the homestead from big city developers. And I’m hoping that whatever happens, they’ll remember we are people. These are our homes.”
Here is what seems to be the essential misunderstanding. Mr. Small is not a “homesteader” in any traditional sense of the word, which generally means someone who claims ownership of public land by virtue of his occupation thereof. The Broadstone apartments are not, as far as I know, public land. Mr. Small is there presumably according to a contract into which he himself chose to enter with the property owner, and I would be shocked if that contract did not allow the property owner to cease making the apartment available for rent. Of course, as a renter, Mr. Small does have rights, and those rights have recently been expanded by the City. But I am not aware that a renter, no matter how long his or her tenure, has a right to claim any ownership of the property based on that tenure.
Don’t get me wrong — I certainly do feel sorry for Mr. Small and the others profiled in that article. But I also appreciate the desire of the developers to improve the return on their investment in that property. Which brings me to a letter also published in today’s Gazette, headlined “City should rethink its affordable housing plan“, and written by two people who do not live in Gaithersburg: Patrick Ryan and Alisa Glassman, the co-chair and lead organizer of Action in Montgomery. They state:
Exempting developers from citywide policies is the wrong tool to encourage revitalization. Giving governmental permission to displace thousands of residents from their current affordable homes is morally wrong.
In addition to the potential large reduction in the existing supply of affordable and moderate-income housing in Olde Towne, the city’s new proposed affordable housing requirements for the rest of the city are substantially lower than requirements in the rest of Montgomery County.
The county mandates a 12.5 percent moderately priced dwelling unit (MPDU) set aside, with an additional 10 percent for workforce housing in developments near Metro stations. Gaithersburg is considering a 7.5 percent set aside for MPDUs, with an additional 7.5 percent for workforce housing.
However, from a sidebar in Ms. Ciavarra’s article, we learn that there are 1,881 moderately priced dwelling units that have been available for purchase in Montgomery County, and there are 823 rental MPDUs. This affordable housing policy has been in effect in Montgomery County for about thirty years, and in the entire County there are fewer rental MPDUs than there are affordable apartments just in Gaithersburg’s Olde Towne? This is the policy they want to emulate?
Moreover, as I imagine AIM would be the first to admit, an MPDU as currently defined will do nothing for someone who is able to afford only $799/month for an apartment. I saw nothing in their letter, except possibly their mention of the “tax credits, higher zoning density, affordable housing trust funds or subsidized financing” (in other words, turning tax dollars over to the economically disadvantaged) used by other jurisdictions around the Country, that would give any hope to those who currently can only afford these older, neglected properties. However, perhaps if AIM can encourage the City to impose development rules in Olde Towne which make it extremely difficult for a developer to obtain a reasonable return on a redevelopment project, then the developers will stay away, and Olde Towne will stay just like it is — at least until the existing structures deteriorate to the point that they are simply uninhabitable.
Instead, the City has noted that Olde Towne has been almost devoid of redevelopment projects for several years now, and what projects that have been completed over the past decade or so have been subsidized by the City in one way or another. Possibly the City’s recognition that they shouldn’t be making a bad environment for development even worse is what worries AIM.
