City Drops Consultant Over NIMBY Comment

The city is cutting its ties with a planning consultant who upset residents by calling them NIMBYS.

Jeffrey Tumlin, who works for NelsonNygaard Consulting Associates, a firm contracted with the city, came under fire in the past two weeks after a neighborhood group distributed copies of his resume. It said "Santa Monica politics had been dominated by NIMBYS who used traffic fear as their primary tool for stopping development."

"Unfortunately with those comments, he made himself a lightning rod," said Deputy City Manager Kate Vernez.

Vernez said Wednesay the city has asked NelsonNygaard to pull Tumlin off Santa Monica projects because he could no longer be effective.

Tumlin did not return a message seeking comment. He has removed the NIMBY reference from his resume.

NelsonNygaard helped the city draft its Land Use and Circulation Element, and Tumlin was in the midst of working on a new zoning ordinance to deal with parking when Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City circulated his resume and launched a public campaign for his dismissal.

"This dismissive attitude toward residents' legitimate concerns is alarming coming from a man who is tasked with finding solutions for all stakeholders in our community," the coalition wrote on its website. "He has shown that he has already made up his mind: residents' concerned about development are not to be taken seriously."

On Wednesday morning, it fired off a letter to the City Council that continued to press for Tumlin's termination. Among its reasons, the group said, the consultant was "ignoring residents concerns" and proposing "radical transportation" ideas that would benefit developers.

The letter was signed by 600 residents, according to the coalition's co-founder, Diana Gordon.

Tumlin, representing NelsonNygaard, was proposing the city loosen its off-street parking requirements for new apartment buildings and certain types of commercial projects, such as hotels, restaurants and markets, built on the major boulevards. To reduce gridlock and free up garages, his plan focused on driving people out of their cars and onto their feet, public transit and bikes.

Those types of policy proposals probably will not change with Tumlin off the project. City Manager Rod Gould said he "retains full faith" in NelsonNygaard and would likely "call upon it in the future."

"Nelson Nygaard, particularly Jeff, are some of the best at what they do—which is help cities try something different in terms of land use and policy," said Santa Monica resident Juan Matute, the Director of the UCLA Luskin Center Climate Change Initiative.

In a March 1 interview with the Santa Monica Lookout, Tumlin said his resume referred to development taking place in 2005, and at that time, Santa Monica residents were "right to oppose the development... because [it] was making Santa Monica less like what citizens wanted Santa Monica to be."

Tumlin won the 2012 California American Planning Association's "distinguished leadership award" for his role in drafting Santa Monica's Bike Action Plan, according to his resume. He cites his work in other major cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver, among his accomplishments.

"Tumlin really knows the ins and outs of things like parking policy and their related economics," said Santa Monica cycling advocate Gary Kavanagh. "It can be a difficult position to be in to present alternative approaches to long held policies."

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