> Saying "I want it, other people have it, so take it from them and give it to me" will not lead to a solution.

Says the guy who LITERALLY proposes that he be compensated if dense housing is built on land that he doesn't fucking own because it messes up his morning walk.

I'm not asking for anything free. I'm asking that rightful owners of property be allowed to build on that property that they own without writing a random old man a massive check for ruining his morning walk.

Strategic advice for lurkers:

0. OP is common, and people like this are NEVER going to compromise. You have to crush them with pure electoral force. This is possible.

1. Attend a few meetings and do 1:1s with every seatholder, but don't get too bogged down. Either you have the votes or you don't, and this is an issue where many council people have huge personal financial vested interest. Figure out what they do for a living, any rental income streams they have, and how they got their seat.

2. If you have seats on your side, work with the most senior friendly councilperson to draft a plan of action. They'll know how the local law works and what there are likely votes for. Contrary to parent's cloud yelling, there is no one golden solution. The levers available and the impact those levers will have is highly contextual to your community.

3. If you don't have the seats, focus on flipping seats and crushing NIMBYs. Again, work with a friendly councilperson on a strategy and figure out if there's already organizing happening.

You likely have the votes; the key is turnout. One good strategy is to target renters, who tend to be pro-housing. Be smart and use your skills.

"Does the person who owns this property live there" is the question to ask, and there are many different ways of answering that question. You'll likely need a quiltwork approach, using public property records as your starting point. In many states you can obtain county-level voter rolls for free or for a small fee. Names and addresses.

Then canvas. Don't pitch, listen. Don't try to convince or debate; that's literally doing turnout work for t he other side. Just listen, ask a couple open ended questions, walk away, and at the sidewalk tick "yes" or "no" or "doesn't care". Find your base. Make sure they know how to vote for and make sure they vote.

Only start doing the hard work of convincing people to change their minds if you don't have the votes in your base. The good news is that you likely have the votes in your base. Look at numbers from prior elections. Turnout is low.

4. Likely don't run yourself; find a candidate who is passionate about YIMY and anti-rentier. But also embedded in the community. Churches, school groups, grew up in the area, etc. Well liked. It's possible you're a good candidate, but much more likely that you can find a better candidate who agrees with you on these key issues.

5. Regarding meeting attendance: stuff like "big groups at city council meetings" only works when you have the votes anyways, or when a councilperson doesn't really GAF, which makes it kind of silly. Especially for this issue where there are likely well-formed opinions and financial conflicts of interest. Don't waste your time if the votes aren't there. Until you have a majority of friendly councilpeople, ignore the city council boomer circus. (And it really is a total circus of retired nutjobs many weeks...) Ignore it. Quietly do the work of flipping seats. Turnout in local elections is low; getting even 20% of renters in your community to vote 100% pro-housing is likely enough to flip every at-large and a good number of precincts.

6. This will likely take multiple election cycles, but if you can find one cycle where all the seats you need line up, go all in. Spend money, spend time, don't squander a rare opportunity. Slating can be incredible effective, especially with a really good at-large candidate who can carry multiple precincts on his/her coattails.

This year is an especially good year because of massive rent increases. People are angry. Capitalize.

7. If you think this helpful, thank OP. Without the strange condescension I wouldn't have bothered typing this up.