NIMBY mindset is about resisting municipal might
NIMBY is a term of disdain these days.
That's because anyone who dares to declare “not in my backyard” is universally derided as a selfish stick in the mud who can't see beyond his or her blatant self-interest.
Such is often the reaction toward those having the unmitigated gall to oppose the state in its various, bullying forms.
Hostility, derision and abuse are inevitably the rewards when standing up for what, in its purest form, is one of the last remaining cornerstones of individual liberty — believing that owning your own home comes with certain rights, alongside many costly responsibilities.
It boils down to resisting the exercise of power by those who have it toward those who don't.
Through the centuries, starting with a challenge to the divine right of kings with the signing of the Magna Carta, individuals have fought against such a lopsided status quo. After much struggle and bloodshed, even the common folk eventually carved out a few rights for themselves; always a tenuous situation at best, and often tied up in the ownership of property.
It's quite remarkable what a tiny plot of land can do to our willingness to stand up and declare, “This far, but no further.” Or to put it more precisely in today's lingo: “Not in my backyard.”
That's why so many Calgarians trooped to city hall to have their allotted five minutes to speak before those they say are impinging upon their property rights: Mayor Jyoti Gondek and the 14 members of council.
As with any group wielding power over the individual, the issue at stake is conveniently deemed both morally righteous and overwhelmingly necessary. In the case of council, this revolves around today's lack of suitable housing in our city.
Housing is therefore conveniently reconstructed as a universal right, so that those who already have a place of their own should forgo any imagined rights tied to their property in the face of this much greater good involving those who don't.
To do this, the city is proposing scrapping long-standing planning regulations, a move that would eventually change the face of so many neighbourhoods where single-family homes were previously the only residences allowed, something earlier civic administrations put in place without any proviso involving changing those rules sometime down the road.
What is rarely mentioned in this debate is the city will pull in more tax revenue from fourplexes and row houses than from stand-alone bungalows, that developers will make a killing and it won't result in cheaper housing.
Meanwhile, the person most responsible for this countrywide home shortage, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, may wriggle out from beneath this fiasco by successfully bribing local authorities into ditching long-standing planning rules.
Instead, those who stand to gain are framing the issue as the fault of those selfish NIMBYS: If only they'd get with the program and sacrifice the lifestyle they imagined buying their home guaranteed, and instead welcome a new, inclusive existence as part of becoming a better human being. How can these folk not see this?
(Remarkably, one councillor said it's about building communities. Really? That's what council's up to? What sort of community will it be when every for-sale sign sends a shiver through neighbours, worried a developer will buy the property, bulldoze the place and erect some large, multi-family dwelling on the lot?)
Maybe those who spoke before council managed to change enough minds. Maybe this housing strategy will fall. Or maybe minds are made up and it was all a matter of optics, pretending to sit and listen but just wishing the complainers would soon move along.
But if this change does come to pass, city hall doesn't deserve the moral high ground. Not in my backyard remains a cry of individual liberty against the relentless state.
It is no cause for embarrassment.
If this change does come to pass, city hall doesn't deserve the moral high ground.