In a lot of people's minds, including mine, these laws are very similar to attitudes at the beginning of the country that said that only land-owning males could

In a lot of people's minds, including mine, these laws are very similar to attitudes at the beginning of the country that said that only land-owning males could vote. Essentially, local planning meetings are like that. Anyone can talk but people who own are given priority over renters and people who own are obviously going to be more aggressive in protecting their position than we could expect renters to organize. On the surface it doesn't matter but the net effect is pretty clear (lots of single family houses, little apartments, expensive land and expensive housing)