It’s fairly common to hear NIMBY arguments in debates over development and land use. The acronym is short for “not in my backyard,” and a local housing rights group says the stance is steeped in racial overtones in New Orleans.A new report from the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center says “well-resourced groups of mostly white homeowners still play an outsized role in determining local zoning and housing policy.” Specifically, the organization said its research shows that over the past 15 years more than 600 affordable housing units have been scrapped or delayed because of opposition from white-led neighborhood associations. LFHAC looked into the demographics of neighborhood association board members and compared them with the demographics of the neighborhoods they represent. The group found neighborhood associations in New Orleans are predominantly white and affluent, while the city is majority Black, working class renters. The center also tracked the historic makeup of New Orleans neighborhoods and found that once their population reached 50% white, the neighborhood association board composition became more than 90% white. Cashauna Hill, LFHAC’s executive director, said federal fair housing laws limit what control neighbors have over development, even when it comes to matters such as density or infrastructure impact.“I'm perplexed as to where that sense of entitlement comes from,” Hill said. “As a homeowner, I certainly don't expect that I have say-so over what happens outside of my home. I don't own the street or the neighborhood because I own a home in this community.”LFHAC’s report is also critical of decisions made to enact short-term rental bans in the French Quarter and Garden District. It points out the New Orleans City Council and City Planning Commission “did not consider the majority-Black areas adjacent to these neighborhoods important enough to warrant a ban...”White neighborhood organizations also had a more prominent voice in revisions to the city’s comprehensive zoning ordinance, according to the report. It noted commenters at public hearings before the city council and planning commission were overwhelmingly from the same majority white neighborhoods: 29% from Bywater, 27% from the French Quarter and 20% from Marigny.The LFHAC report also cites specific instances where neighborhood groups have thwarted affordable housing development, saying that local officials and policymakers mistakenly showed deference to “small, but well-organized groups of mostly white homeowners.” Its findings show NIMBY opponents have killed 422 apartments and delayed another 184 since 2006.Examples include a 210-unit mixed-income building, with 80 apartments for low-income tenants, proposed along Tchoupitoulas Street in the Lower Garden District. The city planning staff recommended the development, but opposition from the Coliseum Square Association resulted in a 6-0 vote against the project, according to the LFHAC report. Another proposed affordable housing development in the Bywater neighborhood is singled out in the report. The Housing Authority of New Orleans teamed with a private developer to build on a vacant block between Royal and Chartres streets. Original plans submitted in 2019 called for 150 units, with 90 of them designated for tenants who make 50% or less of the area’s median income.Members of the organization Neighbors First for Bywater challenged the size of the proposed development, pointing out that HANO had just 56 units in the previous complex.Brian Luckett, a board member with Neighbors First for Bywater, said the group’s opposition to the proposal also centers on its environmental impact. He said plans call for removing mature oak trees from the lot, and that the proposed design would trap exhaust fumes from a parking lot in the center of the development.The proposal has since been scaled back to about 130 total apartments, but Luckett said even that size is way out of scale with the neighborhood. His group would support an affordable housing development comparable to what was on the property previously, he said. “Neighbors First for Bywater has always supported affordable housing. We have a consistent track record of this across the life of our organization, and yet we're not getting any recognition for that,” Luckett said. Luckett also challenged the findings of the LFHAC report, noting he is a statistician and that he was “not impressed” with the study’s data. Neighbors First has consistently opposed higher-end development along the waterfront that would be well out of reach for working class occupants, according to Luckett.“What they're doing is they're saying that correlation equals causation, and that's not the case, he said.Hill said the numbers and facts cited in the LFHAC report speak for themselves, and that she hopes officials tasked with making land-use decisions keep them in mind when hearing arguments over affordable housing development. She said such discussions need to consider what can be done to serve those in need, rather than the opposition.“How do these folks again have access to affordable homes and affordable homes that are in well-resourced communities?” Hill said. “That's the conversation that we need to be having at this time.”