NIMBYs lost the big arguments. Now they’re fighting over fine print – The San Francisco Standard

NIMBYs lost the big arguments. Now they’re fighting over fine print  The San Francisco Standard

Have you ever sat down to play Monopoly or Settlers of Catan with someone who knows they’re going to lose? Their goal sometimes morphs into making the game as painful as possible for everyone else, poring over the rules to find loopholes and fine print to the point that other players just give up. It’s an apt analogy to how NIMBYs are treating challenges to dense housing development. Over nearly a decade, California has layered housing laws that narrow what cities and neighbors can do to block a project they don’t like once a developer files. Essentially, cities can’t change the rules mid-stream anymore, downzone a site, or use discretionary review to stall projects that qualify based on growth mandates and affordability carve-outs.

Take Fairfax, a Marin County town where some neighbors were so angry about a proposed six-story apartment complex that they tried to recall the mayor and vice mayor last year. The vote failed, but it was a flash of the fury over development that periodically erupts in the Bay Area. Months after the recall vote, the town wrote to Mill Creek Residential’s lawyers to say it accepted the developer’s terms. Officials asked for a $30,000 reimbursement for staff costs, then pointed the developer to a staffer for permits. Moreover, the town agreed to cap the developer’s share