NIMBY

The not-in-my-backyard attitude is widely disdained. Macro-cosmically, an example might be the Vineyard’s opposition to the Oak Bluffs golf course plan of several years ago, and to one of two Edgartown golf course plans that surfaced about the same time. For a variety of reasons - aesthetic, cultural, environmental - Islanders resisted. Turns out, not unexpectedly perhaps, the developers of the rejected golf course plans may make out better than those who financed the links that actually got the permit, because the golf business nationwide is experiencing economic problems - too many courses, too expensive, no growth in the number of golfers. But, that’s really beside the point. But, the golf wars of earlier in this decade were all out bloodbaths, consuming the attention of Islanders across the Vineyard.

Micro-cosmically, the nimby attitude has attended nearly every substantial development undertaken here, no matter the apparent, underlying good intentions of the applicants. The fierce opposition to the Old House Pond acquisition by the Land Bank is a good example of a conservation initiative opposed by neighbors, but the Land Bank’s files are filled with letters from neighbors of Land Bank properties objecting to the purchase and use of the public conservation agency’s new preserves, on grounds of traffic, environmental damage, access, litter, and on and on. Every affordable housing project has attracted similar opposition. The current focus of neighborly opposition is the Bradley Square project planned for the informal arts district in Oak Bluffs.

And, the opposition is understandable. It does not deserve the disdain it receives, or the nasty attacks by some of the project’s supporters. It seems to me that opposition by neighbors, whose settled understanding of the character of their neighborhood is likely to be upset by unanticipated development plans, is natural, to be expected, and to be accommodated where possible. Which is not to say that such opposition ought to control the decision making.

To this non-neighbor, the Bradley Square project appears an imaginative, felicitous, multi-dimensional approach to a development opportunity whose cost basis must be high and unforgiving.