Relevant to Albemarle County - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

mtgillikin.bsky.social • 4 days ago

Relevant to Albemarle County

"Local politicians need to stop pretending they want to end homelessness when they won’t allow new homes." www.dailynews.com/2025/03/02/l...

Comments

bogturtles.bsky.social•4 days ago

Ah, if only we could deregulate pesky regulations on pharmaceuticals, I’m sure the magic invisible hand would make insulin cheaper…. When you deregulate an industry, they just add that money to their profit margin without making products any cheaper.

mtgillikin.bsky.social•4 days ago

What are you talking about

bogturtles.bsky.social•4 days ago

There is a flawed assumption in too many of these arguments about housing that by deregulating the housing industry that somehow homebuilders would be more altruistic than other industries.

mtgillikin.bsky.social•4 days ago

Did you read the article?

bogturtles.bsky.social•4 days ago

The thing is… most housing regulations nationwide have been a constant for decades. Regulation has not increased by anywhere near the rate of increase in the cost of homes. I tend to suspect speculation as a more obvious factor, and there are legislative options…

https://create.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Real-Estate-Speculation.pdf

mtgillikin.bsky.social•2 days ago

Invitation Homes (mentioned in that article) and other real estate investment entities routinely say publicly that a big threat to their profitability is more homes being built to meet housing demand. These entities (which aren’t good!) love it when new housing gets denied

bogturtles.bsky.social•4 days ago

I did. It repeatedly blames regulation for the cost of housing and touts deregulation as the cure. It’s an argument for laissez faire economics. The odd non sequitur at the end about minimum wage requirements confirms it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire

mtgillikin.bsky.social•4 days ago

Allowing accessory dwelling units is a good instance of deregulation. There are good and bad housing regulations. For someone who loves saying the devil is in the details, you might do well to look into those nuances. And the final point is about prevailing wage requirements, not minimum wages.

jimduncan.bsky.social•4 days ago

We need housing. *and* infrastructure.

And businesses intermixed with housing.

mtgillikin.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yep! And those things shouldn’t be pitted against each other, which is the way Albemarle currently operates, to the detriment of housing, infrastructure, and businesses

jimduncan.bsky.social•4 days ago

To be fair, the city is awful too.

Another reason they should merge

mtgillikin.bsky.social•4 days ago

They’re not going to merge and I think people need to drop that line of thought. And the city is actually taking steps to improve these dynamics, while I’m not seeing much of it in the county.

jimduncan.bsky.social•4 days ago

Bike lanes & sidewalks that stop at jurisdictional boundaries are insufficient

mtgillikin.bsky.social•4 days ago

Obviously. And hopefully the Regional Transit Partnership will help with that.

bogturtles.bsky.social•4 days ago

I’ve long supported reversion. The next census will probably make that impossible though. A good way to start would be to create a unified parks district or a unified school district. I don’t realistically see that happening though.

bogturtles.bsky.social•4 days ago

As a related side note here. Crozet is now large enough to pursue incorporation as a city, which would give it its own taxing authority and autonomy.

jimduncan.bsky.social•3 days ago

Agree.

And will never happen

https://www.realcrozetva.com/2021/01/18/crozet-should-become-a-town/

Autonomy comes with responsibilities and expenses

terrimiyamoto.bsky.social•3 days ago

Do you think that if Crozet were able to control its own zoning, we’d get more housing? I’ve been to too many CCAC meetings to believe that. I’ll never forget the comment that people shouldn’t live in one bedroom apartments, that would have been perfect if I needed to bring my mom here to live.

toddrhbg.bsky.social•3 days ago

A Town would be much easier then City incorporation. Crozet has had a clear path to that, but there is no local leadership to make that happen. The Crozet growth area boundaries could easily be used as municipal boundaries with minor tweaks

jimduncan.bsky.social•4 days ago

Should be Charlottesville *and* Albemarle. Not versus.

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