How can we as a community see the beauty in solar panels?
The term NIMBY stands for “Not In My Back Yard.” We culturally understand Nimbys to be people who do not want development near them. The term’s connotations are not favorable– NIMBYs are seen as opposing projects such as affordable housing development and clean technologies like solar panels. The implication of the term is that these residents are ok with this development happening, and may even claim to support it in a broader sense, so long as it isn’t in their neighborhood.
In response to NIMBYism, a movement of ‘Yes In My Back Yard,’ or YIMBY, is taking hold. These YIMBY advocates want to allow more housing in neighborhoods, fund affordable housing, make permitting simpler, and fix policies such as minimum parking requirements. YIMBY also means saying ‘yes’ to environmental projects, such as wind turbines and solar panels.
What does YIMBY look like on the ground? One example looks like “upzoning,” or allowing more housing in areas previously zoned for single family homes. These residential, single-family areas are often unaffordable, and are zoned to keep out more affordable housing options like duplexes and apartments. This pushes up prices in those neighborhoods and surrounding areas, which means that those with fewer means are forced to live further outside and commute in for work. Saying ‘yes’ to denser, more affordable development in town centers creates walkable, diverse, mixed-use centers that are much better for the climate than urban sprawl.
YIMBY also means saying yes to green new development. In Vermont, one of the primary complaints against solar panels is aesthetics. In fact, there have been multiple solar projects shut down at least in part by aesthetic complaints. In 2021 the Public Utility Commission denied a certificate of public good to a 500 kW solar development in Manchester based solely on aesthetic considerations, finding that it would be “offensive or shocking to the average person.” A YIMBY approach to solar development would not allow for a project to be stopped solely based on aesthetic concerns. A bill addressing this issue of denying solar based on aesthetics was introduced in 2023, but did not make it out of the Senate Finance Committee.
It is vital that we as community members start saying “yes” to sustainable projects in our backyards. We are in the midst of a climate emergency. Now more than ever, we need to build– we need clean new technologies like wind turbines, solar arrays, battery factories, battery arrays, and transmission lines. We are also in the middle of a housing crisis– the United States has a massive shortage of homes, somewhere between 4 to 7 million homes, and homelessness rates have risen in the past few years. We are in this pickle because we have built our society based on zoning that says ‘no’ to affordable, dense housing development.
The best way to lean into a YIMBY mindset may be reframing how we think about these projects. Bill McKibben puts it best when he writes, “at some level it really is an aesthetic issue. When we look at a solar panel or a wind turbine, we need to be able to see… that there’s something beautiful reflected back out of that silicon: people finally taking responsibility for the impact our lives have on the world and the people around us.”
We need a major shift in our cultural framing of affordable housing and green development. For too long we have prevented this vital work from happening, and the consequences have been largely invisible to us. We cannot easily see and all of the families forced out of living in our Vermont communities (or who never move here in the first place) because of high housing prices. Likewise, we are accustomed to having our energy produced elsewhere, whether that be at places like Hydro-Québec’s generating stations in Canada or the oil refineries across the globe that supply power to our vehicles and heat our homes. It is time for us to say ‘yes’ to sustainable, green development in our communities.
