[Schnitz]

Homeowners are a reliable political cohort, they tend to organize quickly as soon as any issues are on the agenda that might affect the value of their land and they will reliably push for whatever increases land values. They show up at city hall to make sure they are at least the loudest group on the issue. Homeowners are also diligent voters. You’ll need more than 50% of people to be renters to counter this, unless you can convince renters to organize as reliably and passionately as home owners.

[jjav]

> Homeowners are a reliable political cohort, they tend to organize quickly as soon as any issues are on the agenda that might affect the value of their land and they will reliably push for whatever increases land values.

I feel like this is a myth, do you have research to back this?

As a 20+ year home owner, I've never been asked to support anything to increase land/housing value (not that I'd want to, since that means higher taxes for me, which I'd rather not).

I don't think this homeowner cabal to increase values actually exists. If it does, nobody invited me and nobody invited any of my homeowner friends (which is all my friends) either, so it can't be a very large group.

[lazide]

Have you been asked to vote for/against zoning changes, or for special approvals for variances for developments?

Because I got those all the time. If I didn't show up (which I often did, as a homeowner in the area just to see what they were proposing), all the old folks in the area (90% who owned) definitely did to shoot it down or ask for crazy demands that jack up the price. Sometimes they just filibuster in the vein of 'onion on my belt'.

You'll see big boards up talking about 'Planning Commission Meeting' or 'Meeting on a Proposed Development' at the site of any proposed work, public notices in the paper, and developers in an area are usually required to send notice mailers to every address in the area too in advance.

Those are typically what you see. People generally don't propose a zoning change titled 'Plan to screw over all the poor renters and make the homeowners rich', since that's a bit too obvious and would get thrown out in court. It would be something like 'Plan to develop lot XYZ into high density residential' (which may get shot down).

Many folks (including planning commissions) are happy to ask for on the surface reasonable stuff that makes projects economically unviable, or complain about how the extra traffic from all those people will place an undue burden on them and ruins their quality of life and 'the neighborhood character'. Those complaints are also real - having more people in a small place DOES increase traffic (even with public transit), DOES change quality of life and neighborhood character (better or worse depending on who you are), etc. Adding more parking WOULD be nice for many people, even if there isn't space for it on the lot (why not do a underground parking garage then! $$$)

Which if the planning commission doesn't weigh heavily will result in a rather short tenure for them, in my experience.

All of which raises property values, and decreases the overall number of people who can have accommodation in an area by reducing density.

[jjav]

> Have you been asked to vote for/against zoning changes, or for special approvals for variances for developments?

Also, if there are cities where this level of question does go on the ballot, it's the same ballot for everyone. So both homeowners and renters in that city get to vote on that, so it's not like there is any special influence power in being in one group or the other.

[heavyset_go]

My municipality's NIMBY calling cards for proposed new development are "if dense housing is built, traffic will be even worse!", "more housing development could mean overcrowded schools!" and "what about our precious open space that some residents treat as garbage dumps and allow overgrowth of invasive species in?"

[jjav]

> Have you been asked to vote for/against zoning changes, or for special approvals for variances for developments?

No, never. That's not the granularity of questions that bubble up to the ballot. Those planning and permit commissions do whatever they do mostly behind closed doors, they certainly never ask the electorate.

[jethro_tell]

It never really gets on the ballot around here. But it is certainly brought up in counsel debates and people usually vote for that by proxy through the counsel positions.

There are also always hearings around higher density zoning and people turn out tooth and nail to oppose those at counsel meetings. On thing that is interesting, is people generally like the idea of more housing but when you say, 'We're going to add these 4 blocks near your house to the high density core', either people like it less or the people who like it less come out in droves and throw a fit.

[tekknik]

But in the spirit of the question and for curiosity’s sake, if you were faced with a decision that’s beneficial to renters but decreases your property value, which way do you go?

[jjav]

> But in the spirit of the question and for curiosity’s sake, if you were faced with a decision that’s beneficial to renters but decreases your property value, which way do you go?

Details of the proposal matter of course, but in general I'd rather not support home values going up because that just means higher taxes for me in exchange of nothing since I continue to live in the same house which is unchanged.