I’m a former YMCA board member, and I believe the new location being scoped out by the White Rock YMCA on Gaston at Loving will be great for the neighborhood.

But I don’t live around Gaston and Loving, so how much should my opinion count? And how much should any one person’s opinion count, for that matter?

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That’s the question we were trying to ask, and answer, in this month’s Keri Mitchell-authored magazine story “Y me? One man stands alone in opposing a new home for the YMCA.” (Note: May magazine home delivery is just beginning as of Thursday, April 26.)

Joe Kast lives in a home across the street from the YMCA’s proposed building site, and he and his wife are YMCA supporters. But the new building (the most recent site plan is here) winds up pointing one of its in/out driveways directly at his home, so he’s concerned about how the Y’s move would impact his property value. It won’t be a positive impact, Kast says, having cars and buses driving by his house every day and pointing their lights into his windows and revving their engines outside his door.

The proposed YMCA site was formerly occupied by Trinity Lutheran Church (I’m a former member), and the church activity was minimal, Kast says. When Kast bought his home, he knew the church was there, and he knew the underlying zoning was residential — essentially, if the church closed, the new property owner would have to obtain a zoning change from the City in order to build anything other than single-family homes on the site. Kast was OK with that, too, probably figuring that surrounding homeowners would join him in opposing a commercial rezoning request, since a change like that could negatively impact their property values, too.

But the Y move to the site also means the often problematic Far West bar/dance hall down the street is likely to close and be redeveloped into something more neighborhood-friendly, so neighbors — a few of them holding their noses a bit — have lined up behind the YMCA’s plans for Gaston and Loving, figuring that all-in-all, the change is a positive one for the neighborhood. City leaders also appear to support the zoning change, believing that most of the neighborhood is behind it.

The problem is that what’s good for the neighborhood as a whole isn’t necessarily good for this individual neighbor, and it’s something that could, in theory, happen to any of us who own real estate since zoning is more of a changeable guideline rather than an inalienable right.

That’s the conundrum our story attempts to explore.