» Monthly Archives: March 2009

Clean energy vs Nimbys on Capitol Hill: no aquí, por allá por favor (not here, over there please)
By Ben Kelahan Senior Vice President for Energy, The Saint Consulting Group Sometimes it's hard to translate where elected officials stand on energy issues. Jennifer Dlouhy in The Houston Chronicle points out effectively that when it comes to national policy or party versus local politics, tough decisions are still made in defense of the home. It brings to ...
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Florida bingo hall proposal galvanizes grassroots fight to reverse “done deal”
When elected officials face a fired-up community, watch out. A bingo hall that stirred opposition in the Florida panhandle is now spurring community groups to hire their own expert to propose a comprehensive development plan to their own county commissioners. A grassroots coalition mobilized against a proposed bingo-casino plan in Perdido Key, Escambia County, near the ...
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Survey: Most Americans Do Not View Wind Farms As Harmful
March 27, 2009 North American Wind Power Seventy-nine percent of Americans do not believe a large wind farm project is detrimental to their health and welfare, according to the 2009 Saint Index survey of attitudes toward real estate development projects. Slightly more than one in 10 adults, 11%, say a large wind project could diminish health and ...
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Fyson On…Rising Tide of Hardened Nimbies Threatens Greater Risk of Action Against Planned Developments
March 27, 2009 Planning Given the difficulty of defining the phenomenon known as nimbyism, it is just as well that a survey of it prevalence should be part of a series. Saint Consulting's annual report on public attitudes towards development has entered its third year. While the firm's contribution towards understanding exactly why people oppose development is ...
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Nimbyism Growth Threatens Development
March 26, 2009 Construction Now Planners are facing an increasingly difficult struggle to get public acceptance of development projects, according to an annual survey of public attitudes. The UK Saint Index found that the percentage of people that have objected to a development project in the past year has increased to 21% of the population, up from ...
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National Energy Needs Not Enough to Justify Local Wind Projects, Expert Says
Renewable energy interests have effectively linked themselves to key issues of national importance, but it’s not enough to overcome citizen opposition when a project is proposed for their community. That’s the conclusion Saint Consulting Senior Vice President for Energy Ben Kelahan expressed in a news article reported in Wind Energy Weekly. Local opposition to wind energy ...
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British public opposition hardens against private housing — Saint Index
The latest UK Saint© Index survey carried out by The Saint Consulting Group found that NIMBYs who actively opposed a project last year campaigned the most against private residential projects compared to all types of development in Britain. In addition to being the project most opposed by active NIMBYs, residential housing has steadily lost ground since ...
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Wal-Mart Quietly Rings a City
A report in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune pretty much confirms Jesse McKnight’s posting earlier this month about Wal-Mart making a concerted efforts to build stores in parts of the country that have traditionally been off limits to the big boxes. While Wal-Mart has been in the spotlight for trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to plant its flag in ...
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82% of Americans Support Locally Sited Wind: Survey
March 20, 2009 Wind Energy Weekly An impressive 82% of Americans support wind farm projects in their hometown, up from 76% a year ago, according to a recent survey. The 2009 Saint Index is the fourth such survey from the Saint Consulting Group and involved interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide. Broken down by region, residents in the Midwest ...
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Quarries hit rock bottom as most opposed property sector in Britain — Saint Index
The latest UK Saint Index survey carried out by The Saint Consulting Group found that quarries reach a new all time low, for the first time beating casinos and power stations as most hated form of development. The Saint Index asks whether the public supports or opposes development across a wide range of industries. This produces ...
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