Quote Originally Posted by Bham1982 View Post
No, that would be an example of NIMBYism. The fact that people are often against development and change in their back yard doesn't mean that the change being proposed is of dubious value.

And obviously the highway got built anyways, just to the west, where there were fewer NIMBYs at the time.
As to NIMBYism, sometimes you've got to fight it, and other times you need to be a part of the solution.

I'm involved in our homeowners association and a group of residents were opposing the development of a 15 acre site into 150 condo units. The people opposing it backed up to the 15 acre site, which is currently a large empty grass field that is owned by a hospital.

I was at a meeting with them and asked several homeowners what they wanted to see developed, and they said they wanted nothing developed. I asked them if they had any intentions of buying the site, and they of course said no.

I found it funny that they were unrealistically against any and all development. What did they think there options were? Condos are much better than the 24/7 ambulatory center that was first proposed for the location, as well as apartments. The quality and style of the condos was quite nice. All the parking is in the back of the condo units, making the fronts look like contiguous row-houses. Additional places to live will also help the retail in the area, property values, and the schools.

Instead of fighting the development, I worked with the developers to try to get the best outcome for homeowners. Then I went to work with M-DOT and the city of Rochester Hills to get traffic issues on their radar and possible solutions in motion.

I was able to talk some sense into some of homeowners in my sub and they worked with the developer to have a three-row tree line put in between their backyards and the development, as well as having some long-standing drainage issues resolved that are caused by elevation differences.


For those of you interested in I-696 placement, there was a thread I created about it here: http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...ould-Have-Been