Anytime the subject of high-density housing is introduced up there may be positive to be a contingent that claims they help the concept, simply not of their yard (NIMBY).
It’s an angle that has delayed motion on the housing disaster not simply in Waterloo Area however throughout the province.
In the mean time, two developments are going through stiff NIMBY opposition. The primary is a deliberate subdivision in Wilmot that may embrace stacked townhomes and small condo buildings amid single household properties. The second is an condo construct on the land owned by Trinity United Church in Elmira.
Though these communities desperately want extra high-density housing, continued opposition is gumming up the works.
The NIMBY angle is a superb supply of frustration for native housing advocates, together with Philip Mills, CEO, Habitat for Humanity Waterloo Area.
He instructed The Mike Farwell Present, as a society we’ve reached a degree the place the one path left to repair the housing scarcity is the trail ahead.
“I don’t know if we’re just lying to ourselves as a community where we say ‘Hey, we can keep things the way they are. The community as it is now can stay. We can recreate that space we remember.’ But, we’re long past that opportunity. We don’t have an opportunity to go backwards.”
Mills stated the communities are seeing the results of not having sufficient housing.
“Not having enough work. Not having enough workers. Not having enough nurses. Not having enough teachers. Not having enough tradespeople and restaurant workers. All those places that we want to be a part of, that help to make the community. Those can’t exist without people to work in them.”
“If we don’t have housing. If we don’t have spaces for the community, the things that make this community great will start to participate,” he added.
