Usually at community meetings you can hear the crickets. Lately though, community halls have been standing room only. NIMBY brings out the mob in people. NIMBY needs to be stopped.

Last night the NIMBY mob was in Braeside. The line up was so long to get in that hundreds were turned away. The NIMBY mob didn’t want a methadone clinic in their neighbourhood.

Less than two weeks ago the NIMBY mob was in Triwood. It was standing room only again. The culprit this time was affordable housing for at risk 18 to 24 year olds.

The NIMBY mob is almost in every community. There are some exceptions. Years ago I worked in a group home for Native youth with addictions in Temple. Though the group home had been in the community for years, neighbours were unaware of its existence. I was dumb founded.

Whereas in Parkland, where I grew up, the community blocked a mentally handicapped group home from coming in. Parkland is usually about as sedate as it gets, but NIMBY quickly brings out an organized and vocal mob.

Ten years ago in Parkland, a 100 unit condo development was proposed where a gas station and strip mall had been vacant for years. This was unacceptable in this single detached housing neighbourhood. Roars and accusations of property values plunging, crime sprees, crippled reputations, and traffic jams whipped the NIMBY mob into a frenzy.

The condo development went through regardless. When I recently asked my parents how the condos were doing they said they didn’t even notice them. I am serious. A whole community came out like hysterical loonies to oppose a condo development and now they don’t even notice it. Getting all worked up over nothing is classic NIMBY.

Even in Hillhurst-Sunnyside NIMBY is out in full force. A couple of years ago, a transitional housing development for women who were victims of domestic violence was proposed. The usual NIMBY mob cards were played, even the 'I don’t want those kids in our kid’s school' to the 'I don’t think it is appropriate because these kids have to cross a busy intersection to get to school' (even though most kids attending the school from the community do too) were used. Thankfully the NIMBY mob was smaller than usual. The result was the development narrowly passed.

The NIMBY mob goes from community to community like a plague. It gets especially incensed about halfway houses, homeless shelters, group homes, drug treatment centres, affordable housing, basement suites, and any increases in density. No matter how small the proposed change, people will fight tooth and nail. The result is ghettoized areas in the downtown area. It is a travesty.

Our city has problems of poverty, drug use, and other related issues. NIMBY tries to pretend these problems don’t exist. It pushes these problems onto other communities that are less organized and have less money. It is easy to demonize what you don’t understand.

NIMBY tries to create a Disney like utopia in our communities. We all know Disney is just a figment of our imagination. Communities like Triwood, Braeside and Parkland have problems like drug use and mental illness which if you fall through your safety net can lead to homelessness. Little patches of heaven these communities are not and they should not be making other communities a living hell.

We all need to take responsibility for our city’s problem. We all need to do our fair share. Therefore these ‘big box’ amenities need to be broken up and repackaged into a community scale size. At such a size these amenities can blend in and even be part of the community. Every community needs to have some of these amenities in them. Every community needs to do their part.

The only way to make this happen is through an inclusionary zoning policy that ensures that new communities already have these amenities built in and that current communities have their zoning bylaws changed to accommodate these amenities. Nothing short of this will be enough to put NIMBY in its place.

It is time that we as a city grow up. It is time to become responsible and accountable for our problems. We need to come together and build our communities, that include everyone.