Cory Briggs’ Mayoral Candidacy: Tilting Windmills at the YIMBY Menace?
Time is of the essence if we’re going to have this discussion...
Environmental attorney and mayoral candidate Cory Briggs has issued a call to arms on Facebook making it clear his candidacy is all about stopping the “phony” YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) movement.
Here’s his opening salvo.
We must immediately halt all YIMBY proposals to lift height limits and eliminate parking requirements to promote new high-density residential development until all adverse consequences have been studied and funding has been secured to protect neighborhoods from those consequences.
The “yes in my back yard” movement consuming City Hall is really advocating for “yes, but only in your back yard.” Make no mistake: I am running to fight the phony YIMBY movement.
It’s a lengthy statement in desperate need of an editor, and I suspect some comments are based on strongly negative feedback received since announcing his campaign for mayor.
Cory deserves to be heard, and we need somebody with a good eye for detail watching over what’s is about to happen in our city. The defensiveness oozing between the words in this tract diminishes the strength of his arguments.
At the core of his arguments are these assertions:
High-density residential development proposals lifting height limits and eliminating parking requirements amounts to nothing more than a massive transfer of wealth from residents to corporate investors and absentee landlords
State and local would effectively dismantle the community-planning process, giving developers the power to decide how and when neighborhoods change.
San Diego’s capital-improvement program (CIP) and development-mitigation funds won’t be able to deliver the infrastructure, amenities, and services needed. (Especially since they aren’t doing it now.)
Increasing residential density is not proven to make a difference in family housing costs.
Gentrification and displacement created by tearing down existing homes and replacing them with high-rises is consistently undervalued or even ignored in planning for increased density.
Increasing density without improved public transit means the only beneficiaries of more development will be developers.
There's more --a lot more-- content in his commentary, but I'm dedicated to keeping this post short enough to get read all the way through. I’m glad Briggs is raising these concerns, especially given San Diego’s history of “wink, wink” deals with our local land barons.
Here comes the “but”...
We as a city, given my sense of where many of the council stand politically, can walk and chew gum at the same time.
From what I read, he believes the notion of intensive infilling for existing urban San Diego neighborhoods needs to be halted until environmental, political, and infrastructure concerns are addressed.
We should have as a city had those discussions a couple of decades back. San Diego’s neighborhood community plans were--for the most part-- shelved as the economic, political, and environmental considerations underlying their original assumptions changed.
I think that horse has already left the barn.
The lack of developable real estate outside the urban cores in the county, the short-sightedness of past politicians, and awareness of the coming consequences of climate change have created an unstoppable force.
Cory Briggs saying “stop” won’t change what’s already happening.
By the time all the lawsuits (the city would presumably file if Briggs was elected) against the state’s probable mandates and the local re-do of building regulations, our 12 year window of opportunity to mitigate the worst elements of climate change would be looming over San Diego.
The YIMBY movement didn’t fall from the sky at the behest of profit seeking developers, even if they’re more than happy to exploit it. And a mayoral candidate’s willingness to cast advocacy for infill as participation in an unholy evil alliance is only going to garner votes from the most reactionary quarters.
I think a movement pushing back against NIMBYism is needed. Say what you will about community control and input, it’s been my experience that too many of the squeaky wheels in these discussions are motivated by less-than-noble intentions, namely racism and classism..
I watched the process for re-doing North Park’s zoning. The arguments against increasing density along major corridors nearly always came down to fear of the “other” (crime is the code word) and lower property values.
Now some of the same folks are polluting the Next Door app thread with claims about anybody being able to build anything anywhere...and OMG did you see those millennial drunks on Saturday...
As a homeowner who’s lived in in that neighborhood for more than a decade, I know these justifications for not changing are simply bs. It’s working out just fine: property values are up, crime isn’t, and I really like all the small business springing up, even if there are too many breweries.
What does make sense is for us--YIMBY’s, NIMBY’s and whatevers--to:
Insist on getting support from developers for increased revenue for transportation infrastructure up front.
Get beyond the “MBYism” to focus on creating a path forward, which isn’t about hollow labels. That means building a viable environmentalist/community/labor coalition with enough clout to get things done.
Briggs has promised to release a plan for making housing more accessible and more environment/taxpayer-friendly in the near future.
The key getting my support will be realism about getting things done before I end up living on beachfront property.
***
Hey folks! Be sure to like/follow Words & Deeds on Facebook. If you’d like to have each post mailed to you, check out the simple subscription form on the right side of the front page.
Email me at DougPorter@WordsAndDeedsBlog.com