> I’ve sat through enough city public hearings to know what the author claims isn’t true.

> People don’t care if the building is gorgeous; they will still oppose it simply because they hate new homes in their neighborhood.

I read enough of the article to know what you claimed they claimed was not what they claimed. The 2nd paragraph said Ugliness is probably not a major driver of opposition to development by local people. But there is strong circumstantial evidence that ugliness is sometimes a major driver of opposition among people who live nowhere near the development in question.

Many buildings are not ugly and not gorgeous.

> Aside: the reasons new buildings are bland is because no two people agree on what is ‘beautiful’; second, delays due to zoning and endless regulations already make it difficult for a project to pencil even before spending much money on the facade.

New buildings are bland or ugly because this costs less. Everyone's lists of beautiful buildings would differ by 1 at least could be true but is not relevant. It is impossible to design a building most people would not say is ugly would be relevant but is not true.