On Lifting Building Height Restrictions (Arlington, Annandale: apartment complexes, condo, townhomes)

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

) But there has to be a limit to growth. And we can't just continue policies that result in DC being one of about three cities where new jobs are created.

Personally, Im thinking of writing Congressman Connolly and asking him to support locating the FBI in PG and not NoVa. PG really DOES need employment, to address a lot of issues - and anyone with some skepticism about the benefits of growth in NoVa might agree we don't need it, or at least not as much. Care to join me and write Cong. Moran?

[tysonsengineer]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

So all those people in Great Falls are actually poor?

If all the jobs that they have disappeared yes, there houses would be worthless. See suburbs of atlanta, same exact houses, worth 200k

Also while CLT chose to live near DC where the jobs are, everyone else and their grandmas made the same choice. They didnt fit in the space available. So what happened? Only 2 things

1) No new buildings means if you want to live here its gonna cost more than you could ever imagine

2) New buildings get built to keep the price of housing not artificially high

By artificially making an area higher priced than what it is supposed to be by saying NO YOU CANT HAVE THESE JOBS! You eventually hurt the ability for those jobs to stay because the companies end up having to pay more (yes even the government experiences this). Eventually those jobs get shipped elsewhere (yes including government work).

BBD

While we're at it, lets tell NOrthrup Grumman, Boeing, Citigroup, BAE, Booz Allen, Freddie Mac, (and the list goes on) to move to the otherside of the river lets see which state would be the worse off one after that.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

But if you really want the things you are saying, a good sustainable life, retainment of suburban and rural neighborhoods, you should really consider what people like me and BBD who also want these things are saying are good methods to attain it.

hey, i dont necessarily want everything you want

I would love to see more growth in Cleveland and Detroit, which I guess CLT wants too.

For any given level of employment/population growth in the DC area, i think it would be better if more of it were in more TOD type areas. I don't have a strong stake in it happening in Arlington though. Or in Tysons. I'm fine with it happening in DC, Md, and City of Alex instead.

[tysonsengineer]

Originally Posted by brooklynborndad

hey, i dont necessarily want everything you want

I would love to see more growth in Cleveland and Detroit, which I guess CLT wants too.

For any given level of employment/population growth in the DC area, i think it would be better if more of it were in more TOD type areas. I don't have a strong stake in it happening in Arlington though. Or in Tysons. I'm fine with it happening in DC, Md, and City of Alex instead.

To that point I honestly don't care either. I plan on my next purchase(2br place) on being in a TOD region either way. I don't agree that I want areas like Cleveland etc to get it. I am all for it being anywhere... as long as anywhere is in Northern Virginia.

As a whole I do hope that other areas in the country also incorporate this form of design to make themselves more competitive against other countries in the world... just not as well as northern virginia.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

BBD

While we're at it, lets tell NOrthrup Grumman, Boeing, Citigroup, BAE, Booz Allen, Freddie Mac, (and the list goes on) to move to the otherside of the river lets see which state would be the worse off one after that.

I think theres a difference between telling employers to leave, and refusing to subsidize them to come. If both VA and Md bid on employers by offering tax breaks, etc probably those tax breaks will wash, the firms will locate (more often than not) where they would have anyway, but with a net loss to tax payers, and a net gain to the firms in question. I don't think that makes much sense.

If youre responding to my post about the FBI and PG, well I think A. The location of the FBI is more properly a govt decision B. Moving defense contractors away from NoVa with DOD and the existing contractor community, is much harder C. The FBI with its security requirements (even higher than for most defense contractors) is much less likely to create "walkable" TOD type development, and it would be better to have it in a jurisdiction where ANY development is better than none.

Moving Freddie Mac to PG isnt a bad idea though.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

To that point I honestly don't care either. I plan on my next purchase(2br place) on being in a TOD region either way. I don't agree that I want areas like Cleveland etc to get it. I am all for it being anywhere... as long as anywhere is in Northern Virginia.

As a whole I do hope that other areas in the country also incorporate this form of design to make themselves more competitive against other countries in the world... just not as well as northern virginia.

places like cleveland and detroit have existing (under utilized)infrastructure - more development there would economize on infrastructure, as well as reducing social problems associated with their declines. of course the details will depend on the shape of growth there - there is some urban revival in Cleveland, very little in Detroit.

[Carlingtonian]

Not ignoring y'all--just gotta come back to this later.

Re. FBI: They should go wherever will best help them achieve their mission. If most of the Fibbies live in PWC, then it would make more sense to me to put the new digs out there. (But I would actually suggest branch offices in both locations, because working on a huge installation is a PITA much of the time.)

[tysonsengineer]

Originally Posted by brooklynborndad

places like cleveland and detroit have existing (under utilized)infrastructure - more development there would economize on infrastructure, as well as reducing social problems associated with their declines. of course the details will depend on the shape of growth there - there is some urban revival in Cleveland, very little in Detroit.

They also have the lumbering costs of being an established city, which makes revitalization expensive to new developers. Solution, subsidize those developments with private public or give the developers concessions. Otherwise, why would a developer build in an established expensive area instead of building in the burbs of those cities (which they have been).

Its all about ROI, if you are hurting their return in the city, they'll go outside the city. One Loudoun is a multi hundred million dollar project, it could have been done by the developer in an existing city as a single building, instead they made a towncenter out in the suburbs. Both theoretically could be designed to provide the exact same return, the same capital upfront cost, etc Unfortunately it is almost impossible to provide 1000 units vertically in a city around here (not economically, just politically), so instead they build 1000 units in the burbs and everything gets a little more sprawly.

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by tysonsengineer

They also have the lumbering costs of being an established city, which makes revitalization expensive to new developers. Solution, subsidize those developments with private public or give the developers concessions. Otherwise, why would a developer build in an established expensive area instead of building in the burbs of those cities (which they have been).

Cleveland has an arts scene, a pretty good tech u (CWRU) and a bubbling urban revival - in many ways its a more happening than the Clevand suburbs I imagine (not that I know the cleveland suburbs) What the public policies levers are to get MORE development into central Cleveland is, Im not sure (and might be better addressed on the Cleveland forum) - I was merely making the point that there are, from the national/environmental perspective, benefits to development in the rust belt cites over places like NoVa (I imagine even some of the suburbs there have underutilized infrastructure, impacted by decline - at least in metro Detroit) .

[brooklynborndad]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Not ignoring y'all--just gotta come back to this later.

Re. FBI: They should go wherever will best help them achieve their mission. If most of the Fibbies live in PWC, then it would make more sense to me to put the new digs out there. (But I would actually suggest branch offices in both locations, because working on a huge installation is a PITA much of the time.)

I would guess their employees are scattered around the metro area. And they seem determined not to decentralize. If we are concerned about reducing excessive growth in areas that have too much, I can't see why this wouldn't be a good place to start. Much more realistic than expecting a growth moratorium in the region.