MY FIRST NIMBY ENCOUNTER AS A MAYOR

When we look back on our lives, we remember the milestones that we carry to this day: Our first date, first kiss, first car, our first adult job, our first born, as well as moments that have forged our character such as our first heartbreak, first ER first, or first failure. Then there’s the case in our real estate development career, our first NIMBY (Not-In-My-Backyard) crisis.

My first NIMBY encounter was when I was a Florida mayor back in 1996 conducting a quasi-judicial hearing over a seemingly routine development project. Our planning director was our expert witness, testifying to the merits and benefits of the proposed project. At the start of the hearing, I knew we had a 5-0 vote supporting this good project.?

Our planning director was a rising star in the planning department, and in fact, before we started our hearing, the commission recognized his great work and authorized the city manager to give him a raise.? ??

However, as the hearing progressed, he was being attacked by my vice mayor who was arguing with him and publicly challenging and disagreeing with his expert testimony. She was obviously upset with him and siding with the small group of about 20 residents who were opposing the project from the peanut gallery.

I couldn’t understand how my vice mayor, who just a few minutes earlier, was singing the praises of our planning director and even made the motion for his raise, was now saying his assessment as the city’s expert witness was incompetent.

I began to call out the vice mayor for this obvious contradiction when my city manager leaned over to give me an answer that I’ve carried with me to this day.?

He said, “She [vice mayor] is running for re-election and she is counting the votes in the room.”

This was my first encounter with NIMBYism and it taught me valuable lessons that I carry to this day. The project would go on to pass by a vote of 3-2.?

A Mayor’s Perspective?

Looking back on my three-year term as mayor, I learned how NIMBYism quickly and effectively turned good projects into controversial applications. I also observed how applicants reacted to being blindsided by the opposition. My mayoral position gave me a unique vantage point to manage public hearings from the dais, engaging influencers at community intersections, all while under the media’s microscope.??

By the time I completed my term, I had learned that land-use development was legal, logical, and linear. However, I had learned that NIMBYism easily undermined the application process with its emotional, political, and chaotic disruptions. As I went on to pursue my public affairs career, I never thought my mayoral experiences would underwrite my professional journey as an expert in the field of defeating NIMBYism.?

I owe my career to those 20 opponents who showed up at city hall and scared the crap out of my vice mayor. That was nearly 30 years ago, and vocal minorities are still scaring the crap out of local, part-time public officials who determine the fate of countless real estate projects every year.?

Note: Portions of this article were used from the Amazon bestselling book, Never Lose to NIMBY Opposition Again , written by Patrick Slevin and published in 2021.

IN THE EXCLUSIVE PATRICK SLEVIN DISCUSSES WHY DEVELOPERS ENGAGE HIM FROM AROUND THE NATION

???NIMBY MATRIX? STORY OF THE WEEK ??

"How NIMBYism is Strangling America"

Like fog, it creeps in, but unlike fog, it doesn’t dissipate. It gets denser and does untold damage to the economy and Americans’ lives.

It is that modern plague, known as much by its acronym as by its phrase: NIMBY, “not in my backyard.” It is the mantra of everyone who wants wherever they are to remain as it is — in perpetuity.

It is, in part, behind the crisis in electricity transmission, the lack of much-needed natural gas and oil pipelines, unbuilt but needed highways, and is a player in environmental injustice. NIMBYism has also contributed to the housing crisis. It makes it so hard to build anything that disturbs the serenity of those who live in leafy suburbs with manicured lawns, and, perhaps, designer dogs. Yes, people like me — even though I can’t afford one of those homes or dogs.

If you are living the American Dream — two cars, swell house, well-tended garden — you are almost certainly a passive NIMBY contributor.

Active NIMBYs, abetted by the local ordinances that make life pleasant for the urban and suburban elites, fear that new housing will bring things they abhor: traffic, crowding, pollution and people of a different social class.

Desperately needed apartments and even mother-in-law houses or extensions are denied, contributing substantially to the national housing crisis.

It is easy to identify the effect of NIMBYism in housing. Still, it is at work countrywide, restricting, redirecting and forcing the abandonment of projects.

Power lines aren’t constructed, natural gas isn’t moved, road plans are abandoned, and unwanted facilities like prisons, factories and slaughterhouses are inflicted on poor areas, often rural, where the locals are bribed with job promises or don’t have the sophistication or resources to turn up opposition with media, litigation and political influence.

The distorting effects of NIMBYism aren’t just an American burden. In Europe, they are as bad or worse...

READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN HERE ?????

Written by Llewellyn King who is the executive producer and host of “White House Chronicle” on PBS. He wrote this for InsideSources.com .

PATRICK SLEVIN TO SPEAK AT UPCOMING FSU TRENDS REAL ESTATE CONFERENCE IN NOVEMBER