NIMBY Grousing

So there's some growth around here lately.

Many running for ze pooblic office in Idaho Falls are griping about "all the apartments" being built. They don't like them. They want, like the Tolkien's elves, for everything to remain static.

Me? I kinda like coming into town from the south and seeing these apartment buildings near the freeway, rather than the empty fields that have been there since I was a kid (There are three hotels going up in the area too. Neat.)

There's a loud group of people locally who don't want more people coming here. Oh, they want more places to eat and shop and do things, but they don't want more people -- you know, the catalyst that brings more places to eat and shop and do things.

I'm tired of it.

I posted this on a local site, and I stand by it. They were griping about the "lack of planning."

You do know that earlier this year Bonneville County suggested laying groundwork for an expressway south of town. Residents out there went totally bonkers and the county backed down, or at least radically scaled back the vision. A big part of the problem planners face are NIMBYs who want planning to occur unless it happens to impact them.

And yes, I do know there are impacts. Take a gander at Hitt Road between Iona Road and the Yellowstone Highway. The house I grew up in used to be there. It's gone now. That's part of the price we have to pay for growth, and there aren't a lot of people around here willing to pay the price.

Here's that plan. And out of it we're not going to get the groundwork for an expressway (like they're griping about) but another imitation of Sunnyside Road, which they're also griping about.

Same thing at I-15 and US-20. Idaho Transportation Department has a plan to relocate that junction and really get rid of a nasty bottleneck in town -- but when they held an open house, the preferred option was "Do nothing!" because it was going to disrupt the stasis, the static situation the local elves want to preserve.

Upcoming in Ammon: A proposal to convert some fields on the edge of town into a commercial area and room for 1,200 houses. People in an uproar because they don't want the field by their house to be filled with houses. The only way to prevent that is to BUY THE DAMN FIELD, but they'd rather usurp the rights of others to preserve stasis.

Whatabouttaxes and whatabout roads and whatabout schools? Yeah, that's a pickle. But new residents and new businesses bring in new tax revenue to pay for all those whatabouts.