Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti said recently “…he won’t tolerate any NIMBY arguments from residents…” when referring to Toronto’s largest affordable housing package (of 1500 people) in years. Well done Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti!
NIMBY-ism (or not in my back yard) is one of the biggest obstacles facing Toronto urban planners and city strategists. Whether it is affordable housing, dedicated transit lines or a train link to the airport, NIBY-ism can hold us back from doing the things we need to do to make this city great! When initiatives come down the “pipe” with important city wide economic and competitive implications, NIBY-ism has to be fought at all cost.
One idea may be to create a “strategic initiatives committee” that would only handle those issues flagged by city council vote as having city-wide “strategic importance.” The councillor membership (along with possible non elected experts and/or staff) would alternate according to each issue to avoid conflict of interest situations. The committees’ job will be to project manage the public consultation process based on a new strategic initiative deposition framework.
NIMBY-ism proponents will have to demonstrate to the committee how (1) stopping an initiative deemed strategic will have little or no effect on the city’s economic and competitive health and and/or (2) what alterations to the initiative will satisfy their major concerns. Once the consultative process is over the initiative along with any changes deemed constructive is sent back to council for a final go/no go vote.
Debate would be elevated to a city-wide strategic level and local NIMBY-ism arguments avoided. Over time people would start thinking about the big picture when it comes to strategically important initiatives, like a world-class rail link to the airport and NIBY-ism will be relegated to local non strategic issues.
It is the concept do-able? Well, the Ministry of Research and Innovation and the Trillium Foundation uses a similar idea in allocating financial grants to ensure process fairness and openness, and to insulate the organization from direct influence peddling and lobbying. So yes, I believe it is do-able in a form that would be consistent with city governance capabilities. The point is that somehow a process must be found to insulate our local councillors from the worst effects of NIMBY-ism on this city’s future development.
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