[Update] Don't die in my backyard

Not in my backyard (NIMBY) comes in many versions. It can be the branches of a neighbor's tree hanging over the fence, leaving Upstanding Upset Citizen with leaves or fruit to clean up in fall. It can be the kindergarten Upstanding Upset Citizen supports very much, just - doesn't anybody realize that - the kids come mostly from a few blocks this way and a few blocks that way.

An even more delicate issue is that of hospices, those places that provide care to people in the last weeks of their lives.

Dying with dignity is, of course, a concept everybody agrees to. So, when a charity or health care provider files plans to open a hospice in your neighborhood and you do not want it, what do you do?

Zoning law and building codes are the tools used by the discerning citizens to prevent a couple of ambulances and hearses adding to the shopping mall and pilates traffic in the neighborhood.

While the charities and providers try their utmost to involve the community and address concerns, all it needs is one or two holdouts going to court to scuttle a project.

In an ageing country where dying at home in the care of your family is becoming less of an option for more and more people, converting unused gathering spaces into hospices or turning an old villa into a small care facility, face opposition in a number of cities throughout the country.

The negative impact of visitor traffic on the well being of the neighborhood's residents must be the most worrying aspect of all. Visiting times must be awful for Upstanding Upset Citizens: Just imagine the white haired 90 year old bachelor careening down the street in his Porsche convertible, then skidding to a halt on the hospice lawn, or the old lady on a dirt bike taking up a handicapped parking space.

Death creeps out people as demonstrated, for example, by the traffic cop poised to write up a parking citation freezing in his movements, then turning away without a sound, as a gurney with a tighly wrapped corpse is being wheeled out of the house.

[Update 29 Nov. 2013] TheEditor could not let go of one of the court cases which is about a 12 room hospice in the northern city of Hamburg. Said TheEditor: The charities should go and file a permit for a small boutique hotel, I think this would be a good match as far as traffic, number of employees and such go. Once the boutique hotel is approved, they should change the occupants to hospice patients. Of course, legally that may not be permissible, but I'd bet the test would be interesting.