Ron Trzcinski

PlanMaryland

People who wish to settle in the outlying regions of Maryland's counties have shown resistance to the PlanMaryland initiative. These people also have shown no willingness to bare the added cost of allowing for sprawl. In many cases they have denied the negative impacts of sprawl and hence the added costs.

Thoughts on PlanMaryland from a Kristi Allison blog

PlanMaryland is an initiative of the Governor O'Malley Administration to plan for Maryland's expected growth of nearly a million more residents in the next 20 years, more than 400,000 new households and 600,000 jobs.

It aims to preserve existing farm land, limit sprawl, and concentrate growth in existing infrastrucure regions.

Some people in these outer regions are critical of the plan, however the mayor of Bel Air, Dave Carey, is very supportive of the plan as reported in exploremaryland.com

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Bel Air Mayor Dave Carey, however, said the plan is reasonable and does not take any power away from the county or local jurisdictions.

Carey, a Democrat and past president of the Maryland Municipal League, has served on the Maryland Sustainable Growth Commission, which helped assemble the plan.

He said anyone against the plan has not read it. A county is still free to promote sprawl under the plan, he said, but the state simply will not fund roads, schools and other facilities when that happens.

Carey made supportive comments about the plan at the same meeting with legislators Wednesday. During a work session with other Bel Air officials Tuesday, Carey said Harford County's development patterns of the last decade are a prime example of what PlanMaryland is trying to address.

Despite Harford's supposedly well defined development envelope where higher density housing and commercial growth is encouraged, Carey said "three times as many houses" have been built in the county outside the development envelope than inside in the past 10 years.

"Growth on septic systems has proliferated in Harford County," he said.

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Occupy Your Parent's House Movement

Lien Free Home Owners Are An Economic Problem.

To be healthy the economy needs money to be flowing.

Of course, money is generated when wealth is created, but if there is no money to buy the newly generated wealth, then the wealth will not be produced.

Lots of wealth has been created in the United States, but lots of it is tied up and not flowing in the economy.

One place where the money is tied up, about two trillion dollars of it is in banks, which is absurd. Banks distribute money and they make a profit in doing it. So one might ask why are they holding onto the product which they sell. This would be similar to Walmart or Sears collecting a big inventory of goods and then not selling them.

But another place where much of the country's wealth is tied up is in homeownership.

Many people, especially those of older generations, grew up on the philosophy that they should pay off their house and then enjoy the equity that they owned in their home.

However, as long as this money is in the form of equity in a house then it is doing them and everyone else no good. It is wealth, which is not flowing in the economy.

Since the value of real estate varies over time, it is difficult to say what this total value of tied up wealth is. However, an estimate of the number of houses which are owned lien free is about thirty percent.

This is almost as bad as investing in gold. Investing in gold ties money up in a product that does nothing of value for society. At least, ownership of a home gives people a place to live.

With interest rates at sixty year lows, homeowners might want to consider turning this home equity into usable money which can be put into the economy for them to enjoy new products and for others to enjoy by a rejuvenated economy.

Until Mom and Dad change their ways, their children will continue to occupy their parents' houses.

Hey Occupy Baltimore, Did You Think That You Were At Summer Camp?

Occupy Baltimore complains about an economic system which has made the rich so rich and the poor so poor, yet when the homeless, who have been most severely impacted by this system, wonder into their camp they shun them rather than welcome them as the greatest examples of their cause.

Tents, sleeping bags, computers, hand held devices, big screen televisions, and such have been brought to their little camps in the middle of downtown Baltimore, yet, in spite of having all of these valuable possessions, they complain about problems with the economic system and its inequities. By the way, they used electricity for free from Baltimore City, until Baltimore pulled the plug on this theft. Meanwhile they are concerned about their items being stolen.

There may, indeed, be problems with the current economic system and many of the "Occupy" people may be truly acting in earnest, but there seems to be a large portion of this group which is acting like rich kids at a summer camp.

Got Milk?

Has your grocery bill been going up? Have you been wondering who has been eating and drinking all of the food?

It looks like this thirsty young feline has already downed more than a half a gallon of milk.

Save some for the rest of us.

How Much Does a Potential Condition Raise the Value of a Property?

Potential means that something is possible, but it is not actually that at the current time.

Assume that someone has a house which sits on a two acre lot.

Assume that houses similar to this house which sit on lots from about 1 to 2 acres in size are worth about $300,000 plus or minus a few thousand.

Maybe in the particular area lots of about 1 acre are worth $50,000.

Assume further that the property in the example has the potential to be subdivided into two lots of about 1 acre each. One lot would be where the current house sits and the other lot would be where potentially another house could be built.

Because this property has the potential to be subdivided is it worth an extra $50,000 or closer to $350,000?

In other words, is the potential alone worth the value of a separate lot or does the value only increase by $50,000 if the potential is turned into reality.

May it be that more realistically, the 2 acre lot is maybe worth about $5,000 more than a 1 acre lot and not worth the full value of an actually subdivided lot?