August 28, 2025 The Best Source of News, Culture, Lifestyle for Culver City, Mar Vista, Del Rey, Palms and West Los Angeles

Column: NIMBYs Getting a Bad Rap

By Tom Elias

Rarely has a major group of Californians suffered a less deserved rash of insults and attacks than the myriad homeowners often described as “NIMBYs” – an acronym for folks who may favor new developments, but “not in my backyard.”

NIMBYs have killed liquefied natural gas projects pushed by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Gas, thus saving California consumers billions of dollars in rates they otherwise would have paid for generations for unneeded and dangerous gas imports.

They’ve prevented building prisons in urban areas, thus sending murderers, rapists, burglars and more to isolated areas where escapees are less likely to harm anyone than if they make off into crowded neighborhoods.

They kept freeways from running through the greenest (and most expensive) residential parts of the state.

Now they often fight placement of permanent supportive housing for the previously homeless in their areas, because those developments sometimes bring crime increases with them. They also have pushed cities and counties to clean up or wipe away encampments of the unhoused, often placed beneath freeway bridges.

Their moves, whether flawed or beneficial for all law-abiding Californians, mostly drew invective and eventually spawned creation of a opposing group called California YIMBY (yes in my backyard), largely funded by developers who essentially want a license to build what they want, where they want, and never mind the cost to the mental or financial health of anyone living in the area.

Nowhere have supposed NIMBYs taken more heat than in Berkeley today. In the wake of a court decision won by a homeowners group called “Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods,” the academically choice UC campus there claimed it would have to accept more than 3,000 fewer students for the next academic year than planned.

In this dramatic town vs. gown dispute, the homeowner group won a ruling that some say will force the onetime flagship campus of UC (these days, UCLA is higher ranked and gets more applicants) to lower its planned enrollment.

The residents essentially complained that adding thousands of enrollees could produce a new corps of homeless students or drive up rents in the area so high that current occupants might be forced out. They also griped that introducing thousands of new student residents into off-campus housing would create nightly noise problems for other residents.

And, using a sometimes maligned law called the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), they won in California courts at every level.

For this, they were labelled “reactionaries” and “backward” and “selfish” by some of the state’s largest newspapers and television stations.

Meanwhile, after taking a closer look, something that perhaps should have been done before the neighborhood group went to court, the Berkeley campus concluded things would not be so drastic after all: It turns out a thousand or so of the new enrollees can take classes online wherever they live, others can wait six months and then enroll, and no one need be deprived of an education, as critics of the so-called NIMBYs all the way up to a dissenting state Supreme Court justice, had claimed.

In fact, the folks labeled NIMBYs previously accepted many campus expansions, but resisted this one primarily because UC did not build new quarters for its new students. Yes, that was proposed, but the campus conveniently did not examine all the effects of its putative expansion on the area, and no construction was imminent in any case. The neighbors, then, are really being lambasted for a failure by campus officials to take care of needed business and preparation.

But blasting NIMBYs is politically correct in this era, when YIMBY has claimed SB 9, a new law it helped push through the Legislature last year, would simply allow homeowners to make duplexes of their single-family homes. That’s untrue: The 2021 law actually allows at least six new units on virtually every current single-family lot in California.

Politicians also find it convenient to blast what they call NIMBYism whenever their proposals are exposed as harmful to many Californians. Not surprisingly, dozens of today’s legislators, and the governor, have been major beneficiaries of campaign donations from developers and building trade unions who want to build anywhere they can.

All of which means the current anti-NIMBY fashion is often hooey. Informed Californians must learn to see through it.

Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It,” is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

Related Posts

Kobe Day Tribute: Lakers Welcome UCLA Newborns With Purple-and-Gold Gifts

August 26, 2025

August 26, 2025

Babies Received Adorable Care Packages in Celebration of “Kobe Day.” Families welcoming newborns at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center and...

Sawtelle Neighborhood Could See Seven New Small-Lot Homes Under SB 684

August 25, 2025

August 25, 2025

Plans Filed Call for Replacing a Single-Family Residence With Two-Story Homes A proposed housing development could build seven small-lot homes...

Chuck Lorre Buys $27.5 Million Bel Air Mansion With Hollywood Regency Pedigree

August 24, 2025

August 24, 2025

TV Producer Closed on the John Elgin Woolf–Designed Estate at a Discount Chuck Lorre, the television producer behind The Big...

Is $1,500 Enough Anymore? The L.A. Tradeoffs Between Address and Actual Living Space

August 24, 2025

August 24, 2025

New Analysis Shows What 1500 Really Buys in the LA Metro In Greater Los Angeles, $1,500 rents less space than...

Man Arrested After Burglary Report at Lionel Richie’s Beverly Hills Home

August 22, 2025

August 22, 2025

Police Say the Singer Was Home When the Suspect Entered the Property One suspect was taken into custody early Friday...

Ex-Culver City Recreation Worker Indicted: Charged With Exploiting 7-Year-Old in Federal Case

August 22, 2025

August 22, 2025

Prosecutors Say the Former After-School Employee Faces Child Pornography Charges Federal prosecutors say a former Culver City after-school employee has...

Los Angeles City Council Opposes Statewide Density Bill SB 79 in an 8–5 Vote

August 20, 2025

August 20, 2025

Council Rejects Housing Density Plan, Cites Local Control Concerns The Los Angeles City Council voted 8–5 on Monday to oppose...

Spelling Manor Sells for $110M, July’s Priciest U.S. Home Deal is in Los Angeles

August 18, 2025

August 18, 2025

Holmby Hills Estate Once Owned by Aaron Spelling Tops Redfin’s Monthly List The former estate of television producer Aaron Spelling...

Culver City NFL Media Campus Site Could Become 500-Unit Housing and Retail Complex

August 18, 2025

August 18, 2025

Hudson Pacific’s $169M Plan Adds Apartments, Shops, and Public Plaza Hudson Pacific Properties has unveiled plans to transform the former...

Louis Naidorf, Architect of the Santa Monica Civic, Capitol Records Building, Dies at 96

August 17, 2025

August 17, 2025

Designer Also Shaped Landmarks From the Beverly Center to the California State Capitol Louis Naidorf, the architect who designed Hollywood’s...

Frank Gehry Designed Playa Vista Office Complex Gets Green Light From LA Council

August 10, 2025

August 10, 2025

City Council Approves Environmental Study for Playa Vista Development City lawmakers last week moved a Frank Gehry–designed office development in...

Developer Lists $38M Brentwood Estate With Panoramic Views and Resort Amenities

August 10, 2025

August 10, 2025

“The Outlook,” Offers City-To-Ocean Vistas, Wellness Center, and Screening Lounge Developer David Maman has listed a newly built Brentwood mansion...

Brad Pitt Buys $12M Gated Hollywood Hills Mansion With Sweeping LA-to-Ocean Views

August 10, 2025

August 10, 2025

Oscar Winner’s Spanish-Style Estate Features Movie Theater, Recording Studio, Pool Brad Pitt has purchased a Spanish-style estate in the Hollywood...

Shannen Doherty’s Malibu Sanctuary Hits the Market for $9.45 Million

August 10, 2025

August 10, 2025

“Beverly Hills, 90210” Star’s Is Listed a Year After Her Death. The Malibu home where actress Shannen Doherty spent two...

Culver City Approves 344-Unit Project, Drops Office Space From Jefferson Site Plan

August 3, 2025

August 3, 2025

More Housing, Less Office Space as Long-Stalled Site Moves Toward Construction Culver City officials have signed off on a revised...