ARTICLES

NIMBYISM AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
PM Magazine - August 2006

by Debra Stein

For some people, the term “conflicts of interest” raises specters of misused powers for the improper advancement of personal interests. This term, however, has a distinctly different meaning when neighbors are resisting the construction of proposed homeless shelter, hotel, housing project, or halfway house in their own backyards. When a controversial land use issue is at stake, the term “conflict of interests” refers to differing beliefs about whether a proposed project will damage the status quo or bring about new benefits.

Land use and infrastructure proposals tend to put positive and negative interests into conflict. Citizens have a negative interest in avoiding damage to their existing lifestyles. People tend to live in a community because they like it the way it is, and they don’t want higher taxes, more crowded schools, less open space, deteriorated water quality, or lower property values.

Most neighbors who object to the construction of a new drug treatment center or the expansion of a local hospital do so because they fear that change will make them worse off-or at least less well off-than they are right now.

Citizens also have a positive interest in gaining new benefits they don’t currently enjoy; they want additional jobs, more housing units, new tax revenues, and the public services these tax revenues can pay for. Most people who support a land use proposal do so because they hope the proposal will result in a better life for themselves and their families, or for other people or businesses in the community.

Too often, advocates for a project try to refute charges that a proposal will hurt the status quo by painting alluring picture of how change will benefit the community. But when neighbors complain that “the convention center will create terrible traffic jams,” regaling them with details on how many new jobs will be created or how much new tax revenue will be generated by the convention center is both irrelevant and insensitive.

In this case, citizens want to hear how the convention center will be modified or the traffic impacts mitigated to maintain the current flow of cars through the community. Only in situations in which adverse impacts cannot be avoided or reduced to insignificant levels is it effective to argue that new benefits will make up for the harm done by the project.

Protecting the Status Quo

Not surprisingly, a bird in the hand is more valuable than a potential bird in the bush. Citizens are much more likely to protect what they already have than to risk current benefits for vague future improvements. Indeed, people believe they should be paid a lot more money to tolerate change than the amount they would pay to avoid it.

A study published in Scientific American concluded that, while the average utility customer would pay an annual fee of $13 per person to avoid having a nuclear power plant sited nearby, the typical citizen would be willing to tolerate the power plant as a nearby neighbor only if the utility compensated each ratepayer with a payment of $960 per year. The disparity between the high value of current benefits and the lower value of future benefits may suggest why it is so much easier for NIMBY neighbors to mobilize citizens to resist change to the status quo than it is for project proponents to turn out citizens to testify in favor of change in the community.

One way to get citizens to accept change is to stress how resistance can damage the existing quality of life. If you need voters to approve a new bond measure to rebuild city hall, for instance, you’re better off warning that “the old city hall will fall down in an earthquake if we don’t undertake a seismic retrofit” than promising that “city hall will be safer in an earthquake after we’re done with the seismic upgrade.”

Creating New Benefits

Citizens tend to be more interested in, and persuaded by, the promise of certain-but-smaller benefits than by the lure of larger but highly speculative benefits. Describing a smaller, certain impact (“This stadium will generate $2 million per year in new tax revenues”) is more credible and effective than inflating the scale of an alleged benefit but acknowledging its risky nature (“The stadium may generate up to $5 million per year in new tax revenues”).

It is obviously important to make future benefits as credible and certain as possible. Tools that can be used to make promises more credible include imposing enforceable covenants or conditions on the developer as part of a permit, recording deed restrictions, and adopting legal memorandums of understanding.

Detailed renderings and architectural visualizations of the project are particularly helpful in demonstrating how the library, jail, or senior center will compatible with and therefore “fit into” the existing, attractive civic setting.

Resolving Conflicts of Interests

How do you resolve conflicts of interest? The first step is to rely on persuasion. When engaging in persuasion, city officials use facts, arguments, and emotions to convince citizens that a proposed landfill expansion or new office building will not damage the status quo. When it is clear that the proposed project will indeed have negative impacts on the community, then public officials usually shift to negotiation. Negotiations involve the mutual exchange of benefits to minimize the adverse impacts of change while maximizing the benefit to each party through the mutual exchange of concessions.

When considering concessions at the bargaining table, it is important to recognize that popular concessions are not always the same as persuasive ones. A popular concession is one that everyone likes; a persuasive concession actually causes people to shift opinion and accept the project, even if only a few people like the idea.

A simplistic example: Blue is the most popular color in America, but painting a homeless shelter blue won’t materially placate public fear or result in greater citizen acceptance for the facility. By comparison, few people may be focusing on the problem of graffiti in the neighborhood, but those who are concerned may be highly pleased with the shelter’s plan to paint out all graffiti in a block’s radius within 24 hours.

When the only way to address citizens’ interests is to make project concessions, listen carefully to neighbors or conduct opinion research to make sure that you’re making the right concessions that are actually persuasive and not merely popular.

An Interest in Identifying Interests

Anxiety about change is a legitimate factor in the planning process, while hope for a better future is a fundamental premise of America’s civic life. When land use proposals seem to pit negative and positive interests against each other, then recognizing and strategically responding to each type of interest can result in a more productive and reasonable public debate.


Debra Stein is the president of the San Francisco-based public affairs firm, GCA Strategies. She is the author of several books on NIMBYism and her firm specializes in controversial land use projects across the nation. For more information, e-mail Stein, call her at 415-391-4100 or visit the GCA Strategies Web site at www.gcastrategies.com.