THE POWER OF NIMBYISM
With last week’s St. Clair streetcar ruling, NIMBYism goes from a fringe view to a mindset taking hold across the city. Critics are lamenting this. Are they wrong? By Catherine Porter
IMBY. Meaning “ Not
in My Back Yard.”
It’s a term Margaret
Smith has long grown used to.
After successfully stopping the city’s plan to build a separated streetcar lane down most of St. Clair Ave. W. last week, the leader of the “ Save Our St. Clair” campaign was hoping for a more generous label — like “right,” maybe.
“ It’s very difficult for people in a local community to be heard and to make their point,” says the bureaucrat- cum-community activist. “ When we tried to do that, we were labelled anti- transit, NIMBY, anti- change.
“ Labelling people is just a way of dismissing their concerns and not listening to them.” But the label isn’t going away. If anything, since the ruling by the Divisional Court that sided with “ Save Our St. Clair” against the streetcar lane, Smith has been accused of something worse than being a NIMBY. That’s being a successful NIMBY.
Environmentalists, transit riders and many political thinkers have called the group selfish and small-minded, fringe players who took the city hostage. They say the ruling is a disaster that sets a dangerous precedent.
“ This is a microcosm of what will happen over Toronto’s garbage problem,” says Nelson Wiseman, University of Toronto professor of political science. “ It’s also a case if we move toward nuclear power.”
It’s already the case. NIMBYism has become more than a fringe tactic; it appears to be a mindset that has settled across Toronto neighbourhoods.
People want to run their air conditioners all summer long. But the prospect of a generating station in their neighbourhood sent Newmarket residents into a frenzy. People want a subway line to the airport. But when people in Weston heard of the plan to run the rail through their community, they packed a public meeting in protest. We all agree we should build up instead of sprawling out, but when a developer pitched a plan for twin condos in the Annex, the local resident group went ballistic. And just ask the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto about the city’s housing- first policy that makes affordable housing a priority. Their plan to build 90 affordable homes in a vacant city lot in Scarborough has been tied up for more than a year by local residents who worry about their property values and would rather
Nsee deer out their back windows.
“ It does beg the question as to how a city is supposed to proceed with any agenda, either positive or negative, when communities have the ability to stop what’s meant to happen,” says Mark Guslits, chief development officer for Toronto Community Housing and the former manager of the city’s affordable housing file.
“ At what point,” he asks, “ are elected officials and the civil service able to be given enough confidence to make certain decisions for the benefit of all, rather than just specifically zoning into ‘ the some’?” The message behind all the attention is that NIMBYism is dangerous. It reflects thoughtless, knee- jerk reactions that go against the common good. A NIMBYist group is like a cell that has grown too quickly and become a cancer, threatening the entire organism. But what if the opposite is true? Could NIMBYism be good for our city?
After all, Toronto prides itself on being a city of strong neighbourhoods. The vitality of the parts ensures a vital whole.
Margaret Smith compares her own fight with another recent community struggle. “ When the Toronto Islanders beat the airport link,” she asks, “ did people say they were NIMBYs? No, they were validated by council’s decision.”
There’s much debate as to when the term NIMBY was coined. But the Random House Historical Dictionary of Slang attributes the first official use to Walton Rodger of the American Nuclear Society, in the early 1980s, to describe the syndrome of immediately rejecting almost any large construction project. NIMBY has since spawned a whole family of terms, some pejorative, some not. These include NIABY ( Not In Anyone’s Back Yard) and the more recent Banana ( Build Almost Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone).
“ I never use the term NIMBY,” says David Crombie, the city’s former mayor and now president and chief executive of the Canadian Urban Institute. “ Whether it’s NIMBY or not is entirely subjective and usually directly related to your position on the substance of the matter.”
Opposition to a local halfway house, for instance, might be sheer prejudice. But would you regard opposition to a landfill or nuclear waste yard in the same light?
“ People could be right, even if they’re a minority,” Crombie says.
Often, a campaign that was considered self- centred, fringe and anti-progress — in other words NIMBY — turns out to be the progressive way. Take the “ Save Our Spadina” campaign during the early 1970s. It was launched to oppose a highway slated to run down Spadina Ave., linking the Allen Expressway to the Gardiner Expressway. Toronto planners recommended it. Toronto city councillors, as well as Metro councillors, approved it. The group, which included Crombie, then appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board, which upheld the plan.
At the time, they weren’t called NIMBY because the term hadn’t come into popular usage, Crombie says. They were labelled “parochial.” Three decades later, the group and especially its leader, Jane Jacobs, are widely recognized as urban saviours, and the decision by thenpremier Bill Davis to yank the plan’s funding, and essentially kill it, as forward thinking.
“ One person’s NIMBY is another person’s prophet,” says city councillor Joe Mihevc. Mihevc is actually a strong supporter of the right- of- way. He thinks of it as a win- win plan. As councillor for the stretch of St. Clair between Spadina and Oakwood, he says he lobbied hard for community benefits such as extra parking lots and money for business facelifts in order to offset the perceived drawbacks, he says. But he’s also been on the other side of the yard. He led a threeyear community battle against a planned McDonald’s drivethrough on St. Clair near Christie. For years, the battle was called ‘ anti- progress’ and NIMBY, too, he says. But then they won. Last year, McDonald’s Canada withdrew its court application against the city over its bylaw banning drive- throughs near residential areas. Now, the fight is history.
“I disagree with what happened,” Mihevc says about the streetcar proposal, “ but isn’t it great we still live in a city where a small group of people can sometimes win over city hall?” He sees the court decision as proof that democracy is alive and well in Toronto.
People who flood meeting halls and go door to door with petitions are clear symptoms of a strong, engaged community. They care about where they live — and that’s a good thing, whether or not you agree with what they are saying.
“ People want to impose a business efficiency model on something that is very organic, where judgment is required, where wisdom is required and that, in the end, is a mucky process. You have to trust that out of the muckiness, good evolves. That’s democracy. We shouldn’t be afraid of it. It’s complex.”
In the past, some NIMBY campaigns have led to real innovations. Enjoying your green bin? They are the direct result of the massive campaign against the city’s plan to ship Toronto’s garbage to the northern community of Adams Mine. Similarly, our blue box program stemmed from community resistance around the province to plans proposing new landfills.
Across the border, a campaign against building housing on toxic landfills led to a national pollutionprevention movement.
At that point, NIMBY becomes NIABY, says Keith Stewart of the Toronto Environmental Alliance. “ If NIMBYism is simply about sending it somewhere else, then it should be properly critiqued. But if people say, ‘ We don’t want it here or anywhere else, we have to prevent this problem,’ then you can have an incredible force for change.”
It will take history’s weight to judge on which side of the divide Smith’s SOS movement falls. In the end, it might be seen as a self-serving blip in the city’s slow march toward better public transportation. But it could also be applauded as a force that stopped a bad mistake, whether procedural or practical. As former mayor John Sewell suggests, NIMBYism can be a symptom of an ailing democracy — a natural community response to an ill- conceived and poorly communicated plan.
“ NIMBYism is where people are badly led by elected leaders and the process is awful,” says Sewell, who accuses the TTC and city planners of not being open to different ideas and hosting “ fake consultations.” When he was a councillor, he says, he was able to build supportive housing without facing NIMBYism because he approached the community first and really listened to opposing opinions. “The point is, with difficult things, if you have serious consultation, people are very intelligent. They want to do the right thing,” Sewell says. “ Given the opportunity to talk and think, they’ll come to the right decision.”