>barriers to new construction are often based on local appeals to "character" and environmental issues

I don't know about NYS, but in most places I lived, appeals took that form because its almost part of an unwritten protocol, and are rarely the real reasons.

While there's obviously a lot of NYMBYism for selfish and wrong reasons, developers also tend to be greedy and don't give a fuck about people they impact, and there's almost always something REALLY wrong/illegal/fucked up with every new project proposal. In an attempt to get that shit sorted out, you also open the floor to idiots who will bitch about anything and everything.

I lived somewhere where they builder across the street (in another state) wanted to make a mix used building where the commercial portion would be used by chemical labs. When reading the specs, we realized the fumes from that lab were going to be highly toxic, in large volume, shit on every environmental laws ever written, and we were downwind from it. The only venue we had to appeal was in community reviews. The same meetings where the arguments were being drowned out in NYMBYs bitching about "character" and YIMBYs saying anyone against it was a selfish NYMBY. That was rough.

Just one example, but almost every project review i've been directly or indirectly involved in (which was quite a few) had something like that going on.