Comment by marsten

Democracy never handles situations well where one side of an issue is a small highly motivated group, and the other side is a larger group that kinda-cares.

It's the reason we subsidize farmers. It's the reason our tax code remains so complicated. It's also why it's hard to get anything built: Existing owners are highly motivated to block development, and the potential beneficiaries (people who might someday live there, etc.) are too diffuse to mount a defense against them.