Opinion
On housing, it’s YIMBY, not NIMBY
Densely packed housing in Long Beach, looking westward toward the harbor. (Photo: Sergey Novikov, via Shutterstock)While there are many causes that have contributed to the state’s housing shortage, many people place at least part of the blame on a “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) philosophy. Everyone knows that more housing is needed, but they’d prefer that it was somewhere else. The new advocacy group YIMBY, however, is looking to change attitudes toward housing and changing laws to make housing more possible and more affordable.
What is YIMBY?
YIMBY is a recently founded statewide housing advocacy organization in California that works to address the housing crisis by updating and amending state laws. For instance, multifamily housing options like condos and apartments are banned in many areas of the state; amending the law to allow well-managed multi-unit housing will make room for more housing options.
YIMBY is a play on the older “NIMBY.” The latter meant “not in my backyard,” and described a position where people would support goals that ranged from sustainable power to affordable housing, as long as it wasn’t where the speaker could see it. YIMBY, by contrast, is an affirmative statement from supporters that they want affordable housing and they welcome it in their area.
YIMBY Goals for 2019
In 2018, YIMBY sponsored legislation that would bring housing closer to public transportation centers. While the bill did not make it out of committee, there are plans to bring it and other housing legislation and zoning bills before the state congress again in 2019.
Some bills will address zoning issues. For instance, if land in a specific area is upzoned to allow housing, then land that was previously ineligible for housing developments could be used.
Other bills will address land-use fees. At the current time, it can take a great deal of time, effort and funding to have a housing plan approved. This, in turn, makes housing far more expensive for everyone involved.
By streamlining the process, developers can bring housing projects to fruition far more quickly and affordably. The hope is that these savings will be passed on to consumers, lowering housing prices overall.
There are obviously many pieces of the puzzle that will need to come together to ease California’s housing shortage. But, the activists with YIMBY hope that, by addressing legislative roadblocks, they can make at least the first steps toward affordable housing easier.
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Editor’s Note: Anthony Gilbert is a real estate broker in Washington and a member of the REALFX Group.
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NIMBYs are elitist and on the same side as those racist who made the exclusionary laws that gave them (rich, white folk) the best land, locations, jobs, homes, schools, etc., and relegate the minorities/poor to living in the worst, unhealthy, and no opportunity places.
That is, NIMBYs ilk are effectively segregationists using “maintain the character of their cities” and “quality of life”, which is just code for setting the segregationists laws which banned apartments in 70+% of California big cities. Those NIMBY mantras to keep out low income and affordable housing.
What is a right of the people is for the government not to be used as a discrimination tool so the wealthy whites can make 70+% of Calif. cities zoned for single family homes so that only the rich whites can afford to live there. That is a racist, classist, elitist, and violates the bill of rights that was supposed to free the blacks.
only now, after 50+ years is Weiner demanding that those illegal, segregationists NIMBY laws be reversed, and when Garcetti is ashamed of them agrees, the writing is on the wall that just like the new anti-lynching law (which took 150 years to get passed by legislators), the racist effective ban on affordable housing in cities must come to an end.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-vallianatos-sb-827-housing-zoning-20180402-story.html
“L.A.’s land use rules were born out of racism and segregation. They’re not worth fighting for”
NIMBY segregationists should be ashamed of themselves. Everyone knows cities are where the job and career opportunities are, so it is a protected right in our US constitution to have equal access by all, and if but for the laws that keep out the lower class and minorities, they would not have gotten pushed out of the cities (SF now only 3% black from >10%) so that rich whites can take over all of the (purposefully kept) scant housing, jobs, education, and career opportunities.
those NIMBYs got their cute ginger-bread home near jobs and transit, so everyone else be damned to hellatious commutes and contributing to environmental disaster, just so the few rich and housing privileged can enjoy the 70+% of CA cities residential areas zoned as single family homes, making apartments and lower income folks illegals, forcing rents to soar so high to price most into poverty and many into homelessness. If that is their idea of “neighborhood character” then you are not the type of “character” that should get any of empathy or support from progressives or the millions of common people struggling to make ends meat and getting pushed out of CA all together.
We all must say NO to the segregationist NIMBYs and YES to fair housing and laws/zoning that permits equal access to all, getting rid of the current laws/zoning designed for immoral segregation.