Upzoning and Property Values

No, because it ends up increasing property values for existing owners.

Flip it on its head a bit.Let's say you live in a neighborhood of mostly single family homes. A new law is passed changing the zoning to allow higher density, and other barriers to building up are reduced or eliminated.A few people near you sell their homes; they're bulldozed and are replaced with multi-family units. Sure, over the short term, your home value might drop because of greater supply helping to meet demand.However, over the long term, or even medium term, two thi

Ideally NIMBYs wouldn’t have an incentive to block housing construction because while the total number of houses goes up making the average house cheaper, the land itself gets more valuable due to the increased density/development/amenities; so those same homeowners can sell their lots for bug bucks. I guess this misalignment of incentives is a problem of zoning, permitting, and taxation distorting things?

Houses do not go up in value. It is the land. Land should go up in value if the city or town develops. Housing prices can still remain stable if you are allowed to break it down and built something denser. Tokyo is an example where housing prices are far more stable compared to the west despite being the most populous metropolis on earth.

It's not trivially obvious that upzoning would be bad for property values. If it becomes possible to build a giant apartment building on a plot of land in a high-demand area, that makes developers willing to pay substantial sums for it. (The homeownership paradigm does cause various other problems, though.)

The logical flaw in that argument is assuming that home owners care about money.Many don’t, or money is not the primary motivation.Protecting their lifestyle location is likely a stronger motivator.I don’t want even a low rise apartment opposite my house, or a 7/11 on my street, even if it meant my house value doubled.I like my community and neighbours. And that is the point.I could move for sure, if my property value doubled, but I’d be losing so much more!

Maybe it's as simple as wanting less development to maintain and increase the value of their currently owned property.

If it is only in your backyard it is better for your property value in the long run: eventually someone will offer you a ton of money to replace your house with a large apartment complex. If it is everywhere that can build, than the builders can take whatever property comes up - and because they have to compete with other developers for renters they are likely to build smaller so on both counts property values don't increase as fast.

Increasing supply would see your property value rise astronomically. Suddenly there would be developers wanting to build a 30 storey building in place of your single family unit. The ROI on that 30 storey would be high enough for them to give you multiple millions of dollars for your land. What would decrease is the beauty of the neighborhood, but people can be taught to appreciate the beauty of highrise buildings

Those selling the land to the developer profit but there are lots of examples in which home values around the new building decrease due to blocked views/shade/decreased privacy.From a societal POV we should be building higher density and the drawbacks are worth it, but it is also in the rational self-interest of those building neighbors to vote against the new development.NY has alleviated this somewhat by granting all existing landowners some air-rights that they can choose to s