An Abundance of YIMBYfic
Yes, In My Back Yard. 1,350 words, 7 minute read. With Gemini and Midjourney
The Oakhaven Community Hall’s fluorescent lights flickered almost imperceptibly, casting a sallow, buzzing pallor that leeched the vibrancy from Anya Sharma’s carefully rendered drawings of Sycamore Commons. The air hung heavy with the faint, clinging aroma of decades of stale coffee and industrial-strength cleaner. Anya smoothed her notes, the paper crisp under her fingers, a stark contrast to the room’s weary atmosphere. Thirty affordable homes. Solar panels. Rain gardens. Needed. Possible.
"...Sycamore Commons offers a path toward sustainable, community-focused living," Anya concluded, her voice steady despite the hollow echo in the room. She scanned the faces – a retired couple, a young man scrolling on his phone, and the inevitable sentinels: Arthur Pendelton and Beatrice Holloway.
Arthur rose, adjusting the knot of his tie. "Ms. Sharma," he began, his voice measured, "a polished presentation. However, it seems to skim over certain... foundational Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions. Section 14-B, the '78 FAR limitations, are quite clear. And let's not forget the '92 amendment regarding setbacks, which seems at odds with your proposed northern elevation." He tapped a leather-bound binder. "These frameworks weren't arbitrary. They were implemented, piece by painstaking piece, to ensure Oakhaven retains its unique character and, frankly, its property values."
"Mr. Pendelton," Anya countered, keeping her tone even, "the Master Plan encourages density here. The '78 code targeted industrial risks that vanished decades ago. The '92 setback amendment..." She trailed off, realizing the futility. It wasn't about logic; it was about leveraging layers of accumulated text.
Beatrice Holloway leaned forward, her brow furrowed with genuine concern. "And the runoff mitigation," she pressed, her voice earnest. "The plans mention bioswales, yes, but after Meadow Creek back in '98 – remember how choked it got? Dead fish everywhere downstream, all from the golf course runoff – we have to be exceedingly cautious. Have you truly modeled the impact on potential amphibian habitats, considering the soil compaction from construction?"
Anya took a slow breath. Meadow Creek was miles away, the cause entirely different, the soil here nothing alike. Yet Beatrice wasn’t just being difficult; she was haunted by a past failure, overlaying its ghost onto this unrelated project. Anya felt a flicker of despair, the first chill of absurdity. Rules meant to protect rivers from fertilizer were being invoked to question housing during a crisis. The meeting adjourned under a cloud of newly required studies and reviews.
Time warped in the Planning Department. Days dissolved into weeks marked by the rhythm of submission, rejection, and revision. Anya’s desk became an archaeological dig site layered with permits, reports, and contradictory emails. One Monday, a thick packet arrived via interoffice mail: Historical Preservation now required photographic documentation of the "extant sidewalk infrastructure" (cracked concrete from the 1960s) before approving curb cuts needed by Transportation, which itself was holding approval pending revised wind-load calculations for the solar panels requested by Zoning after Arthur cited a 1985 ordinance about "visual harmony."
She found herself waiting on a hard plastic chair outside Mr. Henderson’s office. On the corner of his desk, visible through the glass partition, sat another thick file labeled "Oakhaven Community Solar Initiative - Phase 1 - PENDING REVIEW." Clearly, Sycamore Commons wasn't the only hopeful project trapped in this amber. When Henderson finally waved her in, the air was thick with the smell of aging paper and toner dust. An ancient dot-matrix printer grumbled sporadically in the corner.
"Sycamore Commons," Henderson sighed, lifting the hefty file as if it physically pained him. He flipped through pages brittle with age. "Right. We've got the nocturnal bat assessment back, looks fine. But," he peered over his glasses, "the '94 Environmental Impact Checklist – triggered because the site is within 500 yards of a designated floodplain, remember – requires cross-referencing the soil displacement against the migratory bird nesting timelines outlined in the '03 Wildlife Protection Addendum. So, we'll need that supplemental report before..."
"Mr. Henderson," Anya interrupted, her voice tight. She could feel the imprint of her pen where she gripped it. "We addressed migratory birds in the primary environmental assessment. This is redundant. We need to grade the site before the fall rains, or we lose the entire season, maybe the financing." On her phone screen, a news alert flashed: City Rents Hit Record High.
Henderson ran a hand over his tired eyes. "Ms. Sharma, I understand your frustration. Believe me," he gestured helplessly at the stacks around him, monuments to stalled intentions. "But the procedures are sequential. Mandatory. Layer upon layer. They exist to prevent... well, to prevent things." He trailed off, the original purpose lost somewhere in the bureaucratic maze. "My signature requires the checkmarks. And the checkmarks require the reports." He sounded less like an official, more like a prisoner reading the terms of his own sentence.
The Planning Commission hearing was pure theater of the weary. Speaker after speaker approached the microphone, their voices echoing slightly in the stuffy room. Arthur spoke eloquently of "preserving the delicate balance." Beatrice presented blurry photos of generic birds, warning of displacement. Others lamented shadows, parking, the sheer newness of it all. Anya listened, her meticulously prepared counter-arguments feeling like trying to drain a swamp with a teaspoon. Inside, she screamed: People are sleeping in cars! We need homes! This building is greener than 90% of the houses you live in! But outside, she presented data, charts, mitigation plans.
The commissioners’ faces were impassive masks of civic duty. Their questions were procedural, careful, designed not to solve the problem but to navigate the intricate web of rules without getting snagged. The project wasn't denied, merely… deferred. Pending further review.
Outside, under a sky the color of bruised plums, Leo Maxwell leaned against a brick wall, smoke curling from his cigarette. "Saw that comin' a mile off," he said, not unkindly.
"They didn't even really discuss the housing," Anya choked out, the frustration finally cracking her composure. "It was all process. Procedure. Using rules for things they were never meant for."
Leo took a slow drag. "Yep. This system," he gestured vaguely at City Hall, "it ain't built to say 'yes,' kid. It's built to make 'yes' so damn hard it might as well be impossible. Designed for blockin', not buildin'. Playin' by these rules?" He gave a short, harsh laugh. "That's how you lose before you even start. You wanna build somethin'? You gotta flip the whole damn table, not just rearrange the cards they dealt ya."
The final straw arrived a week later, thin and innocuous in its official envelope. 'Request for Further Clarification: Assessment of Potential Vibration Impacts on Adjacent Municipal Sewer Lines (Circa 1955) During Proposed Foundation Work.' It was utterly tangential, technically complex enough to require weeks of new engineering studies, and almost certainly fatal to the project's timeline and budget.
Anya stared at the letter, her vision blurring. The weight of it all – the months, the revisions, the meetings, the sheer, grinding absurdity – pressed down on her. She felt the familiar undertow of despair pulling her towards simply giving up.
Then, Leo’s blunt words cut through the fog: Flip the whole damn table.
A switch flipped. Not defeat, but cold, energizing fury. She took the offending letter. She didn't file it. She didn't shred it. She walked deliberately to the recycling bin beside her desk and dropped it in. It landed with a soft, satisfying thud.
She turned back to her desk. She pushed aside the meticulously organized binders for Sycamore Commons, the stacks of unanswered bureaucratic demands. Her hand reached, not for an engineer’s contact, but for a fresh legal pad. The pen felt solid in her grip. At the top, she wrote: 'Oakhaven Regulatory Reform Initiative.' Her first bullet point wasn’t about soil mechanics or sewer lines. It was: 'Identify and target conflicting/obsolete zoning ordinances for repeal.' Her gaze lifted from the pad, past the rendering of the unbuilt Sycamore Commons, towards the city map pinned above her desk. She saw not just one blocked project, but a sprawling network of invisible, time-worn barriers. The task wasn't just to build one building anymore. It was to clear the path so building itself could happen again.