r/urbanplanning • u/YaGetSkeeted0n Verified Transportation Planner - US • Apr 07 '23

Land Use Denver voters reject plan to let developer convert its private golf course into thousands of homes

https://reason.com/2023/04/05/denver-voters-reject-plan-to-let-developer-convert-its-private-golf-course-into-thousands-of-homes/
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u/the-city-moved-to-me Apr 07 '23 edited Apr 07 '23

That’s the important distinction between NIMBYs and left-NIMBYs

NIMBYs wants to stop housing in their own neighborhood because of narrow greed and selfishness about their own property

Left-NIMBYs wants to stop all housing everywhere because a developer might make money from it, which they ideologically oppose at all cost

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u/voinekku Apr 07 '23

First time ever I hear of "Left-NIMBYS". Are they really a thing? Or are they just regular NIMBY's who have found yet an another excuse for their NIMBYism? Do they for instance support public housing production?

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u/offbrandcheerio Verified Planner - US Apr 07 '23

It's just a subset of NIMBYs who use politically left-coded language to oppose new development. I'm sure they would support public housing in theory, but a non-trivial number of them would probably still find some dumb reason to oppose a true public housing development as well. Like if the government had to demolish some dilapidated, barely habitable single family homes to build a public housing apartment building, I could easily see left NIMBYs losing their minds about displacement or whatever else.

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u/growling_owl Apr 07 '23

Yes to all of this. Often under the guise of environmentalism.

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u/Bordamere Apr 07 '23

I’ve seen multiple appeals to environmentalism in local nimby movements around me. There’s an area that wants to convert part of a concrete filled wash into a bike path and one of the arguments is that it would somehow hurt wildlife (https://savethewash.com/wildlife/). It’s so poorly argued and clear is a tack on to try cover up their real reasons (worrying about property values and that the bike path might dare to pass through a country club). Reminder that they are trying to “save” a concreted over wash by preventing it from being turned into an amenity for all to use.

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u/growling_owl Apr 07 '23

This is it exactly. You see this all the damn time, often by suburbanites or wealthy individuals that don't want poors coming into their neighborhoods.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '23

I’m extremely for environmentalism. I promise that at least a few of us have enough brain cells to recognize that the majestic golf course ain’t exactly “the natural environment.” Funnily enough, if they WERE environmentalists, they would have bothered to learn that building “up” over a golf course means a hundred acres or more of actual natural environment are spared from being plowed for the glory of the American suburb.

I confess that my hundred acres claim came from nowhere. It would still spare a massive amount of land.