Evan Potter Is Wrong About Leiper: BENN

09/17/2024

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Evan Potter’s take on the city’s planning committee and its chairman is quite instructive.

I agree that the threat of widespread mid-density intensification of the “bungalow belt” is limited. That is of little comfort to someone when a four-plex is going in adjacent to their home.

And on that topic, let’s stop using the NIMBY term. It is pejorative.

The people who throw it around have no skin in that particular game. They are more than willing to demand, as contrasted with ask, that someone who is directly impacted by a decision beyond their control sacrifice that which is near and dear to them. There is no sacrifice too great for someone else to make.

If all a person can offer to the discussion on how to resolve societal challenges is to sneer NIMBY, then perhaps they should just keep quiet. Unless their primary objective is chase social media likes from their echo chamber.

On to the real problem. As Potter indicates, Kitchissippi Councillor Jeff Leiper was likely just playing to his specific audience. Thus the flippant remark about coming for the bungalow belt. I learned a long time ago that the Latin phrase ‘in vino veritas’ is not just limited to drunken moments. It really is a comment about how the true character of an individual is revealed in unguarded moments.

In this case, Leiper’s character was revealed with his smug remarks about coming after the bungalow belt. It is not just the bungalows that offend Leiper. It is also the people who deign to live in them. Leiper is offended by the people who do not share his belief that anyone who choses to occupy a low-density home is being selfish. He is offended that they are not sharing the limited resources of the city with others.

In short, this was just another of many ‘in vino veritas’ moments for Leiper. He truly believes that his standards are the only standards that should exist. It begs the philosophical question of how inclusive is Leiper? More to the point, can one claim to be inclusive when their list of exclusions is endless?

Ron Benn, a finance executive, has been a member of the Centrepointe Community Association for the better part of three decades.