But commercial activity generates taxes beyond property taxes in ways that housing just does not. Prop 13 devalues property tax as a revenue source in favor of everything else. Housing is a source of costs, financially speaking, which a depreciating property tax can't offset.

(i'm not arguing incumbent residents don't also oppose housing! i am saying it matters that city officials look at their tax base and are vividly aware they earn pittances from older, established neighborhoods, and new housing eventually becomes that. there are, um, synergies.)