In the US, we have a phenomen called NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) wherein local homeowners oppose the building of housing near them, especially apartments and multifamily homes. In many states we have single family zoning which mandates that developers can only build single family homes. They are not allowed to build anything else. This has caused a massive shortage and has led to skyrocketing prices. Young people are leaving states like California because they cannot afford to live there. NIMBYs adamantly insist that building more housing will not lead to lower prices, but in reality they are just trying to protect their own property values. There is a growing pro-housing movement called YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) which promotes housing construction. The NIMBYs and YIMBYs are increasingly at odds and city council and zoning board meetings have gotten very tense.
How is the housing situation in your country? Are there zoning laws which are restricting development? Is there a NIMBY/YIMBY divide?
22 comments
Not so much with housing, there’s different reasons why we have a shortage in that regard, but more with any big infrastructure like windgenerators.
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We likely all have different laws in Europe for something small like this, this probably goes down to the local municipality
If land is for sale and viable to build on you can pretty much build a house wherever you want in Greece. I’m not sure if the big cities designate commercial zones (probably) but I’ve seen random houses beside giant corporate buildings throughout Greece
Greece has almost ~35 million homes for ~ 11 million people and why our housing is so cheap (outside of congested neighborhoods in cities) but it is getting more expensive for the past 4ish years
Most of the time the only reason they won’t give you a permit is if you already did something illegal
Major problem in Ireland. Absolutely boils my blood that people who bought their house at a time when a single income in an unskilled profession could support a family are now living comfortably and have the power to deny even a fraction of that same privilege to a huge portion of the population, but they do. And they’re the ones that vote, so there’s little incentive for the government to do much about it.
Not so much housing. Here is Austria houses/apartments of varying value are more mixed than in the US so another apartment building will not affect property values as much. (We don’t have HOAs either to protect property values).
However, there is often opposition when it comes to a) infrastructure being built and b) refugees being housed in a community.
Infrastructure is mostly additional roads or windmills. People don’t want more traffic and complain that windmills ruin their beautiful views. Also cell phone towers (health concerns) or power lines. Opponents will often argue with environmental concerns and drag the process of getting a permit out over many years or even decades.
Regarding refugees: When they arrive communities are the first institution that have to provide shelter for them. In some small towns (or actually even in neighborhoods in large cities) people often protest having refugees in their vicinity, usually citing safety concerns. ‘Too many young men – what about our girls’ safety?’ and similar arguments. The far-right party will often support such protests hoping to gain votes. This is somewhat similar to Americans not wanting housing for the homeless ‘in their backyard’.
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Housing and building costs are through the roof here, too but it’s not so much a NIMBY issue I think. In cities, it just takes too long for new stuff to be built due to bureaucracy or conservative leaders opposing public housing. The building costs are up due to material prices and general inflation.
It’s not quite as bad, no. Most major cities I’ve seen have a lot more proportionally in the way of apartments than they do detached single family housing.
But housing prices have still outpaced real wage growth in most major cities, even here. NIMBYism is always going to be a problem in a place where landowners exist for the simple reason that land in major cities is still valuable scarce property, and it still has the potential to increase in value. You’ll still have landowners disproportionately attempting to influence policy in their home towns if they can; you’ll still have folks stubbornly refusing to give up the detached house they purchased in their 20s decades later when it turns out their little slice of the world was unusually well situated.
If you _really_ want to get serious about stopping NIMBYism in its tracks, I would personally look to places where the building code is not only not as restrictive but which also implement a [land value tax](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/16/the-power-of-the-land-value-tax), which are still rare here in Europe. The idea might sound weird at first but imagine it like this: If Walmart has to pay just as much tax on 1 m² of parking lot as it has to pay on the 1 m² of retail store next to it, it will probably end up building less and less parking lot over time.
To my knowledge the only two EU countries implementing even a small LVT are Denmark and Estonia. Ironically, Estonia has seen some of the highest property value growth in the entire EU in recent years, but as an immigrant to Finland with a lot of family here, I’m still keeping an eye on Tallinn in particular as a place to emigrate to when my working life picks up again. After seeing what happened in the US firsthand I’d have a bittersweet smile on my face if I bought a flat there, saw the land under the building’s foundations feet 10x in price over my lifetime, and see the land tax I pay _also_ 10x in price as a result before letting myself be bought out by a skyscraper builder who’s going to build 11x higher than what I currently live in. It’s all about incentives are the end of the day.
If you’ve ever looked at real estate prices in Switzerland, you will know that housing is a giant problem here. It has become virtually impossible for middle-class couples with a good income to buy a house unless they remain childfree and save for many years, not going on vacations or enjoying other luxuries.
However, the problem is of a somewhat different nature here. In Switzerland, we simply don’t have enough space. Having large, single-family zones in our country is completely unrealistic at this point in time. Switzerland has an area of 41,285 km^2 but if you take into account that you can’t build large settlements in the mountains (for a number of reasons), you’re left with something closer to 30,000 km^2. To put that into context, that’s roughly the area of Maryland. However, while Maryland has a population of 6.1 million, Switzerland has a population of 8.6 million, which means it’s approx. 40% more populous. In other words, this is a pretty densely inhabited place… and it’s only getting tighter because our flourishing economy continuous to attract many immigrants. In Switzerland, there are zoning laws that ensure certain regions cannot be turned into concrete. For example cities have to protect their forests. Technically you’re allowed to chop down some trees but the law requires you to add this part of forest somewhere else. Similarly, farmers needs their fields and pastures. And of course there are our countless lakes. There’s existing infrastructure such as streets and train tracks.
Every single year, an area equivalent to that of Lake Zurich is turned into concrete jungle. Sooner or later, there simply won’t be any space left to build. In the big cities, this is already the case now. That’s why some cities are beginning to break the ultimate taboo and build a few highrises.
Where this development can lead to can be seen in countries such as South Korea, China or Taiwan, where even small single-family houses in cities cost up to 30 million dollars and normal people almost exclusively live in large, 20- or 30-story apartment buildings.
The US has a ton of free and empty land, so people have the luxury to say “not in my backyard”. In other countries, it’s not even a matter of approving or disapproving anymore. There’s simply no physical space left but the population continuous to grow, so you have to come up with creative solutions. There’s no room for complaining.
In the Netherlands it is the same, although I don’t think NIMBY-ism is the main reason for our housing shortage, but it is definitely a factor. A YIMBY-ism movement doesn’t exist here as far as I know.
Lets just say that we are looking for a place to build a nuclear power plant for something around 20 years. Sure the coal mining lobby is strong but its not just them. As soon as any government announces the plans to build one somewhere, local comunities protest. Main argument is usually Chernobyl … like modern nuclear power plants were the same thing as neglected and badly managed power plants in the end of soviet era. But yes, NIMBYsm is a thing.
In every municipality there are zoning plans and regulations which are gone through every 4 years. In that plan they can decide to expand or change how a zone should be built up, be it with houses, apartments, industry etc.
Now, in most cities there are still a lot of detached houses, in part due to WW2 which destroyed quite a lot of cities and ofcourse the time after where more and more people moved into cities.
In my municipality it’s not exactly a shortage or a problem, in recent years a lot of people with rather large property in the city or near to it have decided to part it up and sell. Imo i much prefer to look at houses which actually has property to it, and not some detached house with 5 sqm of “garden”.
Also, they are building A LOT of apartment complexes around, but the problem is not availability…it’s the price.
So in essence, in most Norwegian places NIMBYism isnt the issue, it’s the actual price of what is beeing built that is, there are some laughable prices for even the tiniest studio apartment.
So, I’m not super knowledgeable about this topic but it seems to me the bigger problem here is although new houses and apartment buildings are being built they are way too expensive for young families and end up in possession of already rich landlords or foreigners who either don’t use them or use them for Air B&B.
Yeah we do but it is for a reason. Recently a developer wanted to build large blocks of apartments in the middle of low buildings dwelling (houses, max 3-4 story blocks etc). If he did that, that would be atrocious. Infrastructure couldn’t handle that, and that area would be permanently traffic jammed (already is because people driving into city are trying to escape traffic through our dwelling).
Two streets further same developer build these large blocks. Among older ones which are i think 6 stories max. It looks awful and is awful. He didn’t think of parking spaces, or any services being available). Basically it’s disaster.
Looking at what idiotic decisions are made in my city i think such laws are needed, but not in a form that prevents building anything, but when i see an office building being crammed onto small piece of land just in front of other living building my blood boils
There is [a housing shortage](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51605912) in the UK, which is exacerbated by a number of issues, factors like [second homes in rural / tourist areas](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/12/abersoch-second-homes-holiday-wales), or ‘buy to let’ landlords buying multiple properties up to then rent out. So it’s often difficult for people to buy their first house.
Now, there are a lot of [new homes being built](https://www.inyourarea.co.uk/news/work-to-begin-on-133-home-development/) in towns and cities across the UK, but the key complaint is that often [the houses are basically identical](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2GKT0NR/doncaster-uk-september-10-2021-a-row-of-generic-new-build-homes-with-three-storeys-on-a-large-modern-estate-2GKT0NR.jpg). There’s little additional provision made for things like a new school, a convenience store, or expanding the roads in and out of the area where the new housing estates were built.
There will be NIMBYs, we use the same term here, and our planning laws do allow for residents of an area to lodge letters of objection – or support – for any new developments. In practice, though, the developers will often just reduce the number of houses they are planning to build, or make 10 homes suitable for first-line buyers, and most schemes will usually be approved.
Our zoning laws are quite different, I think. It’s possible to repurpose land in the UK under our planning laws, so a lot of these housing estates will be built on so-called ‘brownfield’ sites that were formerly occupied by industrial or commercial properties. Or you might find a farmer or a landowner who just wants to sell off a spare field or two.
We don’t separate residential and commercial properties that strictly, either. Many housing estates and suburbs will have [this sort of setup](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2A11WPP/outside-view-of-mccolls-newsagents-and-other-shops-in-the-broadway-high-street-in-thatcham-with-cars-parked-outside-thatcham-berkshire-uk-2A11WPP.jpg) where some houses were converted to a convenience store or takeaway food outlet.
In Germany, the term NIMBY and the mentality behind it is something that many are familiar with, but it’s less housing projects that are obstructed this way and more often public transport infrastructure, i.e. railway and tram lines as well as energy infrastructure.
In Serbia it’s mostly about mistrust of the government and institutions.
The city government makes some really questionable decisions, like open corruption, and then people go out and protest. The ruling party of course accuses the protesters of wanting to halt economic development. Ironically most protesters are actually kind of YIMBYs in the sense they want more stuff built but in a better way.
There are some real NIMBYs but they are more tackled onto the main movement, trying to stop development through the excuse of fighting against corruption.
Not in Spain, no. There is a housing shortage, but I’ve never heard of people opposed to new developments because of property values. For other reasons, yes. Per example in my hometown there’s a large tract of public land near the city centre that town hall wants to sell to private developers and the neighborhood opposes because they think it should be left as a park for the benefit of all citizens.
Somebody’s already given a really good answer for the UK, so all I want to add is that we also have “green belt” laws which restrict what can be built where. Basically, around every major city there’s a buffer zone known as a ‘green belt’ in which it’s very difficult to build housing. The aim of a green belt is to ensure that city-dwellers have easy access to nature and green space and that you don’t get American-style sprawl, otherwise pretty much the whole of South-East England would become one giant urban area. And they’ve been pretty successful in doing that – Greater London has barely expanded in area since the War.
The downside though, of course, is that houses don’t get built close to the places where they’re needed. This is a major problem in Oxford for instance, which has a very large greenbelt for a city of 150,000 people, and as a result has one of the UK’s most severe housing crises – it’s the place with the most unaffordable property prices relative to local income in the whole country (I paid about the same in rent there as I would in the wealthy suburb of Paris I currently live in). There were plans to build new housing development in the nearby town of Kidlington, a town so bland that it actually became a haunt of Chinese tourists wanting to experience a “real” place where ordinary English people live, but the locals of course protested as it would “affect the character of the area”. I think the development is going ahead nonetheless though.
There are absolutely zoning laws, yes, but I can’t say that effect is very noticeable. In some areas there’s a shortage of *affordable* housing, but that’s more down to it being far more profitable to build more expensive housing with more markup.
Homes, renewable energy, public transport, there’s a NIMBY for it. People love the idea of building bigger and better things to help them, but God forbid if you build it within eye sight of their property
There are similar laws like that here in Sweden but people usually don’t complain to the municipality about it and they can only really complain if the buildings are outside the “detail plan” for the neighbourhood. If the detail plan says there’s gonna be apartments or multi family homes here then you have no right to complain and stop it. My municipality regularly plan on neighbourhoods with single family and multi family homes. My own neighbourhood is one.
I can’t be arsed to complain about someone building multi family homes. They’re usually within “limit” so they aren’t extremely huge or like no matching the neighbourhood or whatever. Looks like it fits in you know? Our housing shortage which some like to believe is nation wide, is not nation wide. The only places that have housing shortages are the already big cities that have a hard time expanding, and then only build expensive housing… Zoning laws are like never the issue here.
In Spain NIMBYs are not really the problem, but municipalities and public policy.
Expansive monetary policy + Slow and reluctant to increase offer local policy = Housing costs through the roof.
But it seems to me that nobody really cares around here. Every time this topic is discussed talking points are absolutely stupid. I guess many politicians have a lot invested in housing so that’s why the keep pushing this price control + empty houses talking points.
It’s a pretty well studied phenomena. Spain has plenty of land, we have very high density in cities, population is growing even in 2nd tier cities faster than housing, private savings and disposable income are taking a dive, but I guess some tax on empty housing and rent price controls will do it.
And the press keeps this talking points alive over and over so most spaniards believe it to be true.
It is what it is. Someone famous might fight this stupidity because I cant.
Zoning laws aren’t nearly as much of a problem, we have far less exclusive zoning. Our greater issue, besides big money’s real estate speculation leading to skyrocketing rents in cities, is towns having a hard time keeping up with approving building permits and assigning space for new developments while also planning all the necessary public utilities (water supply, waste water, electricity, yada yada yada) and keeping an eye on not letting sprawl get out of control (in adherence to local nature protection areas, existing agricultural or forestry use or simply having an interest in maintaining current motor traffic levels).