Market Forces or If We Let Them Build They Will Come

The nature of the profits to be made off of building downtown Columbia (or really any residential construction in Howard County) considering our location between Baltimore and Washington, our superb school system, etc. means that developers will build anything we say they can build. It is entirely up to the county residents through our elected officials to set these terms. The developers have already used up their residential unit allotment for Columbia, so they cannot build the only thing that is selling right now (office space for example is not selling). The notion that some seem to be pushing that we have to limit our terms to some random set of items that then is zero sum forcing different desired to compete against each other is not only false on the face of it, even worse it plays into the developers hands by dividing the community and making different desires compete. Anyone who plays this game is undermining both their own self interest, but more importantly the communities self interest. If you disagree with this you have to prove to me that developers in this market would say they will not build. There just is to much money to be made for them not to build. That means we, the community, through our elected officials set these terms. And for the record, the Coalition for Columbia’s Downtown has consistently said they support the developers making a big profit. Where they draw the line is they say that the developers cannot push their costs onto the tax-payers (including lien-payers) of Howard County and Columbia and that the developers who with a stroke of a zoning change without a single foundation being laid will make an immense profit of at least $1 billion will need to contribute back to the community by building according to the terms that the community decides are in its interests and reflect the values of mixed income housing, preservation of green-space, and planning adequately so that infrastructure meets the communities needs.