YIMBY vs NIMBY Face Off in Hillcrest on Saturday, May 6

It should be quite the scene. Maybe not as dramatic as the rumble between the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story, but filled with angst, loathing, and a desire to make the evening news. 

A noisy group of (mostly) single home owners (aka- NIMBYs –Not In My Back Yard) has announced multiple rallies around San Diego on May 6. The online scuttlebutt about them is that one larger group  -Neighbors for a Better San Diego– created sub-groups hoping to foster the image that their support is widespread.

San Diego’s YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) group (affiliated with the SD Democratic Party), which is unafraid of putting its cause in its name, has called for a demonstration across the street in Hillcrest; same date, same time. This will definitely be a made-for-TV-news event; look for KUSI to break bad on the pro-housing people.

Putting aside left-right arguments about housing, there’s one tell in the “Neighbors” promotion for their event; the site of their protest is described as Normal Street at University Avenue (under the big flag).

The issue here is the history and significance behind the “big flag.” It’s been around for more than a decade and flown over numerous events, including San Diego’s Gay Pride parade, and is the subject of numerous press accounts over the years.

In May, 2012, the San Diego City Council voted 7-0 (with Councilwoman Lorie Zapf absent) to approve construction of a 65-foot flagpole to celebrate the Hillcrest area’s historical importance to the Gay movement in San Diego. This followed the City Planning Commission's vote to deny a permit for the project.

The 18-foot by 12-foot rainbow flag was flying, just in time for San Diego’s Gay Pride Day.

Describing the location of a historical place with a generic term was no accident, and it speaks volumes about the underlying ideology behind this local NIMBY movement, which crosses many political divides.

Looking at the demands list on each group’s flyers can be confusing. There are lots of political code words bandied about, which require a historical knowledge of housing issues in California.

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 Neighbors for a Better San Diego (which is behind manufacturing various front groups)

What these groups oppose:

• • Mayor Gloria's intention to implement SB 10

• • Unrealistically dense Community Plan Updates

• • Density beyond a reasonable walking distance from transit

• • San Diego's "Bonus" ADU Program

• • Ignoring the need for supportive infrastructure that keeps pace with density

• • Destruction of our urban canopy

• • Shifting San Diegans from future homeowners to lifelong renters

What these groups support:

• • Responsible planning

• • Growth balanced with infrastructure

• • Dense development on transit corridors where appropriate

• • Ample parks and open spaces

• • Preservation of our urban canopy

• • Truly affordable housing policies

• • Opportunities for home ownership

• • Redevelopment of underused commercial and industrial properties

• • Preservation of single-family neighborhoods for future generations

YIMBY Democrats of San Diego

“Say Yes to Housing, Legislative Reform, Combating Climate Change, and Advancing Economic Inclusion for our Current and Future Neighbors.”

That’s it. No bullshit. I keep viewing all the social media pictures from their meetings and have yet to see an evil Stanley Whiplash developer handing over cash to anyone.

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At the bottom of the disagreements over housing policy are redlining (established by the Federal Housing Administration to designate the worthiness of neighborhoods), and exclusionary zoning laws (single family housing being a desired result).

Both of these policies for home ownership excluded people of color as a motivation; it was a way of saying certain areas were to be white only. Real estate agents often included covenants in purchase agreements that were blatantly racist.

Once the pattern of racial compositions was established it remained as bulwark even as the courts and congress tried to level the playing field. At this point, having been excluded from the benefit of wealth building via property ownership, non-white families are priced out of many neighborhoods.

Which brings us to the “we’re-not-racists” argument used by NIMBYs. Sure, the covenants are gone, and nobody’s running around in Kensington dressed in klan robes, but preserving the status quo –enabled by racists– is at the core of their arguments.

People in Barrio Logan oppose developments on a case by case basis in order to blunt the effects of gentrification, but you won’t hear them advocating for the “preservation of single-family neighborhoods for future generations.”

More than three-quarters (75.66%) of residential land in the San Diego region is reserved for single-family housing, according to a study by UC Berkeley's Othering & Belonging Institute (OBI).

• As with our previous studies, the San Diego region’s residential areas are dominated by single-family-only zoning, stifling the development of denser housing options, perpetuating racial and economic exclusion, and shaping access to opportunity for millions of Californians.

Governments just about everywhere are taking steps to promote equity in home ownership.

The sins of our recent past haunt us. We largely stopped building new homes for the middle class (sans housing appreciation wealth) 40+ years ago, and what building has been done is completely dependent on car ownership.

Some people representing us in legislative and executive roles are recognizing the issues at hand, in part driven by the escalating homeless population. Changing rules and laws doesn’t mean waving a magic wand to fix a problem. It took decades to get where we are, and it’s unreasonable to expect instant results.

A big part of what’s being done amounts to making densification of urban areas easier, and from the squealing of the same-as-it-ever-was population creates the impression of massive resistance.

This is what’s behind the splitting up of the Neighbors organization into seven groups. 

The reality is that NIMBYs and their policies mostly don’t win elections. Their political wins come from entrenched politicians.

Here’s the justification for this weekends protests from, Neighbors For A Better San Diego:

• Residents throughout San Diego are uniting in solidarity on Saturday to peacefully protest San Diego’s irresponsible overdevelopment policies. Neither the Mayor nor the City Council are respecting the development policy concerns of their constituents, so residents are taking to the streets to make their voices heard. 

In other words, they can’t find an elected official in the City of San Diego to advocate for their causes, so they’d like people to believe in a battle against a mysterious “them.”

These folks are posing for the cameras all puffed up in the hopes the illusion created will build their ranks.  The “common sense” parts of their agendas belie the truth of how housing policy was done in the past by dressing it up in contemporary rhetoric.

Jordan Grimes, a Bay Area activist who chronicles NIMBY meetings around the state (I love his twitter feeds) used sarcasm to explain what they do.

There is work to be done in housing policy. Nobody’s building low or middle income housing (subsidized or not) because it doesn’t make enough profit. Simply saying we need more affordable housing is like spitting into the wind.

Social housing is becoming one of those terms used by the politically less intelligent to castigate Democrats, along with “socialist”, “woke” and “destroying America.”

The fact is that not-enough Democrats are on board with the idea to get legislation passed. From the Los Angeles Times:

• Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose) introduced Assembly Bill 309 to increase social housing options in California. Two previous social housing bills by Lee have failed to pass the Legislature.

• There are many social housing models, but the general idea is that it’s government funded and occupied by residents of all income levels. It’s typically more affordable for low-income people, and tenants are granted a greater say over how the building functions and is managed.

• Lawmakers took a trip to Vienna in the fall to learn how about the widespread use of social housing in that city, and have pointed to projects in Singapore as a model for what could be done in California.

Getting a commitment to enable social housing is just one obstacle, as this article in TruthOut criticizing YIMBYs for having blind faith in build, baby, build says: 

• In addition to the lack of public housing, another major problem with the U.S. housing market is the perception of housing as an investment vehicle. “For homeowners, housing is basically your retirement,” Bresbis says. “It’s the major source of wealth for the vast majority of American households,” he said. This view of real estate as a financial vehicle creates a perverse incentive to maintain a housing shortage in order to drive up costs and reap a profit. “If we actually provided people with a generous, sustaining and honorable retirement at the national level, like other developed countries do, you wouldn’t necessarily have the same kind of interest in making sure that housing prices are always going up,” Besbris said.

• Rosenthal agrees, noting, “We have a housing market in which prices only go up. And, therefore, housing has become an investment asset for corporations, hedge funds, real estate investment trusts and pension funds. Housing has become an investment for global financial actors, and has more in common with the stock market than it does with shoes.”

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I am generally in agreement with the YIMBY side of this political equation. BUT…I don’t agree that “developers” are going to solve our housing problem, BUT the scale of building required demands somebody with the resources and experience to make it happen.

I want walkable neighborhoods full of small businesses that set up shop because there’s enough population density to make a profit. Given our car dependent culture, spreading out/limiting housing enables the mega retail outlets of the world. 

We built our infrastructure going into this mess, we can build it going out.

While time is of the essence, there are quick fixes even as California is on the right track.

From an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, authored by David Garcia, policy director of UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, and Bill Fulton, who is a Terner Center fellow and a former San Diego planning director:

• California’s housing crisis should indeed serve as a cautionary tale for other states, a warning to increase supply before it’s too late. Despite the recent reforms, broader challenges still threaten to stymie California’s apparent progress, among them stubbornly high construction costs and uncertain economic conditions.

• But even if it takes some time to realize tangible results, the important work of creating a new housing paradigm in California should not be discounted. We are finally moving in the right direction, and policymakers in other states can learn from our successes as well as our struggles.

We’re on the cusp of a globally existential crisis that has a small chance of being thwarted by a strategy of doing everything we can all at once.

The arguments against densification sound way too much like those used by climate change deniers; half-truths taken out of context mixed with warnings about sinister unknown evil-doers lurking in the background. And when that toxic brew doesn’t work, name calling is in order, which is why I’m sure I’ll get called a toady for Todd Gloria and/or an advocate for putting grannies on the street.

Whatever, dudes. Win some elections and we can have a conversation .

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ALSO…

OTTA United (Our Time to Act - Youth activist group) also be holding a Community Listening Session at Doyle Community Park in University City from 10AM - 12PM for housing featuring healing, crafts, speakers, and donuts

At the same time University Peeps will be hosting a protest that’s supposed to mirror the Hillcrest NIMBYs at Genesee Avenue & Governor Drive.

The protests are not close to each other. And the YIMBY's have free donuts for the first 72 people.

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Interesting Developments You Should Read About

Canceled drag show back on schedule at Belly Up Tavern Via KPBS.

• After the Disney-themed benefit drag show at the Belly Up Tavern in North County was canceled at the last minute in March because of an online threat, organizers said they immediately planned to reschedule the show.

• “That was just really heavy on our hearts just to cancel it. We wanted to make sure that our community had a day to celebrate,” said Roxanne Deatherage, director of Pride by the Beach.

• The drag show, rescheduled for May 23, is a fundraiser for the North County Pride festival, hosted by the North County LGBTQ Resource Center.

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Florida Passes Bill Allowing Trans Kids to Be Taken From Their Families Via The New Republic.

Yes folks, these children are such threats to Gov DeSantis that the government will intervene and seize them. Can I call him a pig yet?

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Domestic Terrorists: Convicted Via Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance. 

FACTOIDS: The Department of Justice has secured more than 600 convictions for criminal conduct surrounding the events of January 6, including fourteen “leaders of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors have won full or partial convictions in 100% of its Jan 6 jury trials.  Every. Single. One.

• The Proud Boys and earlier defendants from the Oath Keepers group who have been convicted of seditious conspiracy weren’t the people who were most responsible for the insurrection. Today’s victory will be a hollow one, and history will certainly judge it as inadequate, if DOJ doesn’t proceed to hold the people at the top accountable.

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