WHAT’S A BIMBY?

BIMBY stands for Byron In My Back Yard and is a grassroots group of Byron Shire residents passionate about better outcomes for our shire. We are neither NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) or YIMBYs (Yes In My Back Yard). Lobbying for better planning, urban design, and a more human-centred built space should not be a binary choice. Maybe there is a middle way?

We understand and appreciate why NIMBYs are generally against development. The outcome of the tortuous and labyrinth NSW planning system usually delivers terrible results for residents and neighbourhoods. However, there is also a pressing need for more housing. YIMBYs, mainly young people, have a right to be angry, and we support their lobbying for more density housing in convenient locations and better rental options.

 

What do we believe?

BIMBYs want to take the middle path between the duality of “Stop Everything” and “Let It Rip”. There is such a thing as good development. There also needs to be a change of direction away from endless urban sprawl and lousy architecture. We want to prosecute the argument that ideas of soft-density, active transport, and master-planned communities are the future. BIMBY wishes to progress this conversation so the broader public can understand and support these ideas, allowing politicians and councils to take risks and provide better housing choices, not just more of the same. We need to take the community with us for this change to happen.

 

How it works

Public discourse in Byron Shire is often oppositional and generally anti-development. The belief is that Byron is unique and different and needs to be saved from the worst excesses of the profit-driven housing industry. That has served us for a time, but as we advance, “just say no” to everything is no longer an option.

It will be the worst possible outcome. It will deliver a monoculture of wealthy residents serviced by a commuter class that finds it too expensive to live here. Our children will not be able to afford to buy homes or rent. We will have no diversity and lose the interesting and quirky community, which is one reason why people were drawn to live here in the first place.

The world’s best practice urban design is now settling on planning that places humans over cars, walking, bikes and more public transport over ever-increasing roads and parking lots. Soft density limits extreme height and unit towers and provides easy access to shops, amenities, parks and venues instead of the isolation of suburbs and commuting.

Solving the housing crisis with more density and saving large tracts of land from urban sprawl is possible. Our region’s fertile rural rolling hills must be saved for value-adding agriculture or even regenerated back to forest.

BIMBY runs a Facebook page. Please join us. We also have occasional get-togethers. A sister FB page called #Revive2481 is also good value and is more focused on active transport and traffic reduction.