Fresno seems like the rare California city where you\u2019re more likely to see residents clamoring for more housing in older neighborhoods, than not. (Except, maybe in Old Fig<\/a>. Or the San Joaquin River Bluffs<\/a>.)<\/p>\n So, it might be surprising that the Yes-In-My-Backyard movement, or YIMBY, hasn\u2019t quite taken off here, just yet.<\/p>\n The movement has grown as more people have pegged California\u2019s extreme housing affordability issues on a fraught, bureaucratic system that makes it nearly impossible to build more homes.\u00a0Their guiding philosophy is simple: Make it easier to build housing, and especially housing in walkable neighborhoods and California will become more affordable.<\/p>\n Drew Phelps \u2013 a Fresno-based consultant for suburban developers, (yes, that\u2019s right) \u2013 is hoping to bring that energy to the Central Valley.<\/p>\n Last month, he helped to co-host the first meeting of Central Valley YIMBY, attracting around 20 people \u2013 mostly urban planners and housing professionals \u2013 to talk about building a new pro-housing coalition.<\/p>\n Given his background, he comes at it admittedly from a suburban perspective, with a resume including stints at Granville Homes and Woodside Homes, but he said his goal is to build a big tent, from people like himself to tenant advocacy groups and affordable housing developers.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know we want to have a lot of different perspectives, even different political perspectives. I think that\u2019s what makes YIMBY such a strong and attractive movement to me,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n He assured me, though, that even though his own frustrations with the system come from the challenges in building small lots on the fringe of cities, he\u2019s looking forward to digging more into why it\u2019s been so hard for developers to embrace more infill housing, too.<\/p>\n After all, that\u2019s primarily what CA YIMBY as a lobbying force has been best at \u2013 reducing regulations on building accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, eliminating zoning restrictions to build higher-density housing near transit in walkable neighborhoods and eliminating single-family zoning so that more duplexes and triplexes can be built amongst the craftsman homes of California’s streetcar suburbs and beyond.<\/p>\n And he sees the new Central Valley chapter, focused on Fresno, Madera, Tulare, and Kings Counties \u2013 as key to helping get those new state laws implemented locally, in a way that still reflects valley preferences.<\/p>\n \u201cMy best friend lives in Portland and lives car free. I would love to be able to live that sort of lifestyle, you know,\u201d Phelps said, adding that he lives as a renter in the Tower District, the city\u2019s most walkable neighborhood.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I understand that\u2019s not the exact lifestyle for all of our neighborhoods here in the Central Valley, and maybe at least not in the short term.\u201d<\/p>\n He blamed cities\u2019 reliance on developers to shoulder the costs of aging infrastructure and complicated processes for investors to build even a small triplex or fourplex as major barriers to building more homes in older neighborhoods.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are plenty of times I\u2019ve seen where you\u2019re asked to replace, you know, 500 linear feet of a 100-year-old sewer main, right? And it\u2019s reimbursable, but that\u2019s a cost that you have to front,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n But Central Valley YIMBY might differ from the state group\u2019s approach in one big area \u2013 their stance on suburban development.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s one where you\u2019re going to get a mix of perspectives from our membership, right?\u201d Phelps responded, when asked directly about it.<\/p>\n The state\u2019s YIMBY lobby has often been quite vocal in their opposition to suburban sprawl, even backing bills in the state legislature<\/a> that would make it harder to build especially in exurban areas outside of cities, something akin to Tesoro Viejo or Friant Ranch.<\/p>\n