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We need more housing, but we don’t need more housing. We have a conundrum.

The acronym NIMBY emerged in the 1970s. It was a catchy abbreviation of the phrase “Not In My Backyard,” and it became a rallying cry for groups of people and organizations opposed to the spread of factories and plants that used toxic chemicals with little regard for where they spread or dumped them.

After all, who wants a factory spewing chemicals into the drinking water as well as recreational fishing and boating waters?

NIMBY is still around, but over the years its application shifted from polluters to housing developers as well as other builders.

Today, it is the mantra of local residents who feel we are about to be overrun with cookie-cutter housing developments. The pent up demand for housing driven by population growth in the Upstate is either a culprit or a godsend depending on where you find yourself in the cauldron of boiling water we sometimes call “progress.”

Progress. Now there’s a loaded word if ever there was one.

Simplicity says people need a place to live. Build it and they will come, bringing more tax dollars to add to the local coffers. And with that tax money, local elected and appointed officials say they will make your life better. But will they? That’s where the rub comes.

A large development of new homes is being built so close to downtown Landrum that you could fire off a bottle rocket from your back deck there and hit a storefront on the main drag. But will the additional tax dollars be used to make driving through that wholesome little downtown that is already jammed with SUVs, bulked up work trucks and rumbling tractor trailer rigs more bearable?

A few commuters from that new subdivision will quickly map out alternate routes to work, but many will not, opting instead for the shortest distance between their driveway and Interstate 26.

Just up the road in Columbus, still more housing development prospects are churning the rumor mill. Approximately 250 homes are slated to be built between the Hatch Plant and the newly constructed Jasmine Apartments near the intersection of Highways 108 and 74. Meanwhile, an undetermined number of houses might be built behind CVS on W. Mills Street near the I-26 access ramp.

Oh sure, there are some good companies building subdivisions around the country, but their work is overshadowed by unscrupulous ones who leave a trail of code violations that are missed or overlooked by inspectors. Water drainage issues, flooding prospects and sewage treatment challenges, to name a few. A building boom can easily overpower a town’s staff and thus the ability to protect homeowners. Builders know that, of course.

Boiling it down, we have a small army of house-building companies salivating over the chance to swoop in and make a killing. We have long-time local property owners eager to sell at prices never before imagined. We have retailers eager to have more feet in the street. We have public officials eager to rake in more tax dollars.

What the community doesn’t have is an army of residents willing to devote the time to hold public officials accountable and to find out up front how they plan to use their new-found money. It’s up to long-time local residents and the transplants who want to protect the small-town qualities we have.

Now is the time to be proactive. If not now, no amount of whining and hand-wringing will make a difference in 10 years.

Larry McDermott is a local retired farmer/journalist. Reach him at hardscrabblehollow@gmail.com