The Good Times revived the old “NUZ” column recently and it contained a doozy of a commentary on locals that are fighting “tall-ish” buildings. Here are a few choice sentences from the commentary:
“NUZ doesn’t feel comfortable making fun of these old-school NIMBY’s because their pathological fear of tall-ish buildings is so extreme that the might be candidate for batophobia – which defined as the ‘abnormal fear of being near an object of great height.’ But if that’s the case, these architecture haters already can’t go downtown because the old Hotel Palomar is eight stories... Here’s an idea: maybe we could have an honest discussion about growth and try to learn more about our options instead of lethargically whining about every single rendering for a building that doesn’t look like the kind of home that a hippie might dream up during a water-color painting session.”
Yikes... strong words for the usually mild-mannered Good Times. As an affordable housing advocate, I do think we need to be prepared to go up a few stories in our local rental housing projects or we won’t produce housing for the lower income families and workers that make our community tick and help us all thrive. NUZ does make a particularly smart point about the eight-story Palomar Hotel.
But let’s be nice to hippies.