A discussion: NIMBYism (Not-in-My-Back-Yard).

• Author: Slevin, Patrick
• Position: Florida

NIMBYism: A Mandate for Citizen Participation?

Citizen participation is an important factor in fixing Florida's fractured growth management program and passing smart growth solutions. "Growth management" in Florida has become an oxymoron defining a system unable to establish harmony between economic progress, government planning, and environmental stability. The system's inability to control Florida's rapid growth has ignited a grassroots conflagration, fueling a political wildfire swept up by the winds of NIMBYism (Not-in-My-Back-Yard).

Florida Hometown Democracy, a grassroots group petitioning a constitutional amendment for voter approval on proposed amendments to comprehensive plans, has started a firestorm of debate. Their ballot initiative, if passed, would essentially bypass representative government and replace it with an electoral process that claims to improve citizen participation and decisionmaking.

Is this ballot initiative a banner for citizen participation or is it a campaign for elevating the NIMBY battle onto a greater stage? We'll explore the semantics and the need for better citizen participation, as well as discuss what we can do to better advocate for our clients and our community.

Growth Management Background

The 1985 Florida Growth Management Act was passed to control "runaway sprawl" at the local level. The law put the Florida Department of Community Affairs in charge of comprehensive land use plans developed by nearly every Florida city and county. The spirit of the comprehensive plan set out to capture the vision of the community, protect its quality of life, and foster citizen participation to effectively manage future growth and land use changes.

Florida has seen a population boom over the last 20 years, experiencing between 700 and 900 people a day moving to Florida. This rapid growth in population has rocked the growth management program and its capacity to deal with new construction, traffic congestion, overcrowded schools, water wars, conservation, and endangered wildlife.

On July 3, 2000, Governor Jeb Bush created the Growth Management Study Commission calling for "bold change" to address well intended, but inadequate growth management laws. The commission's final report to the governor was published in February 2001. The report confirmed citizen participation as a vital part to enacting any "bold changes" to growth management. The commission's citizen involvement subcommittee recommended that "local governments require applicants for a development order to prepare a citizen participation plan and require them to make a good faith effort to involve citizens in development review." (1)

The commission's report also recommended local governments engage in a visioning process, which should "articulate for citizens how and why amendments to the community's plan/vision will be undertaken." (2)

However, the lack of government funding and political consensus prohibited any implementation on citizen-centered planning and development.

NIMBYism

NIMBYism is not a true civic participation in a democratic sense. It indicates that the institutional mechanisms currently used in many jurisdictions are broken and preclude meaningful citizen participation in the land use decision-making process.

The Advisory Commission on Barriers to Affordable Housing, established under President George H. Bush, described NIMBY this way:

The NIMBY Syndrome is often widespread, deeply ingrained, easily translatable into political actions, intentionally exclusionary and growth inhihiting. NIMBY sentiment can variously reflect legitimate concerns about property values, service levels, community ambience, the environment, or public health and safety. It can also reflect racial or ethnic prejudice masquerading under the guise of these legitimate concerns. It can manifest itself as opposition to specific types of housing, as general opposition to changes in the character of the community, or as opposition to any and all development (Advisory Commission on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing 1991, 1-1). Florida Hometown Democracy

Admittedly, Florida Hometown Democracy's petition calling for more...