Cypress Cove survey gives NIMBY a bad name

Coastsider has obtained a copy of the results of the Cypress Cove homeowners’ association survey its members. This data was reported to the Cypress Cove Townhome Association in mid-June.  Although the survey has been quoted by the Association’s attorney, to my knowledge no one else has seen it. Go to the links at the end of this story to download the results.

More than half of Cypress Cove’s 128 households responded. Even considering that the survey was biased against the park, it’s clear that Cypress Cove residents are unhappy. Only about half would support even a ten-acre "passive park" on the 22-acre site. And it’s downhill from there.

NIMBY is a term that gets thrown around a lot these days.  When someone wants to put a refinery or a nuclear waste dump near your home, "Not in my back yard!" isn’t an unreasonable reaction.

But we’re talking about a park.  How do we explain their dissatisfaction?

Only 10% of the respondents have kids living at home.  Some respondents mentioned that they chose the community for this reason. And more than half of those responding say they don’t agree that anybody’s quality of life would be improved if kids have a place to play sports.

There is also the problem that Cypress Cove is laid out in a way that makes traffic and parking a constant irritant to its residents, with narrow streets and little parking for visitors.

So, perhaps Cypress Cove residents are predisposed to think of parks as sources of noise, traffic, chaos, dirt, litter, vandalism, accidents, trespassing, drinking, and drugs. More than half of them do, apparently.

Not everyone in Cypress Cove feels this way of course, and I’ve talked to people who live there that understand the park will be beneficial, not simply for the Coastside in general, but for Cypress Cove in particular. 12% of respondents volunteered comments that the survey was too expensive or biased and 8% said not to spend money on surveys.

But the neighborhood’s opposition to the park is remarkably uniform and hard to explain.

In addition the problem of listing mostly negative implications of the park, the survey was biased against compromise.

Respondents were given a choice between a "passive park" that would have "perhaps a hundred daily visitors" and a "sports and athletic complex" that would attract "perhaps a thousand daily visitors".  But no middle ground is offered between the two undefined uses and order of magnitude difference in visitors.

Respondents also were not given a lot of options for action. Two-thirds of the respondents agreed to the statement that the Homeowners Association "should be prepared to protest, perhaps to the point of going to court". However, they were presented with a stark yes/no choice.  If they were prepared to protest, they should be prepared to sue.

The survey suggests that Cypress Cove’s choices are to capitulate or fight.

You can download the survey results and draw your own conclusions. It’s available for download in full or in part.

• The full report is a big file (38MB), so I’ve broken it into smaller pieces:
• The summary has most of the information and charts you’ll need.
• The detailed findings has more information and analysis.
• The questionnaire is here if you need it and you probably will if you want to analyze the results yourself.
• The tables, for survey geeks only, have several interesting crosstabs for each response, including breaking out each response by whether people are inclined to sue the city.

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