>Investors do not at all have the votes or weight at a local city level in most cases, especially large ones from out of town.

Yes, the institutional investors aren't going to be in your local council meeting. They will be meeting with your state assembly members. They will be meeting with your Congresspeople. They won't be literal NIMBYs focusing on anyone's "backyard". However they will be working towards the same goals at NIMBYs, just at a larger scale.

Likely under the guise of safety, environment, etc like building codes and conservation zoning.

>safety, environment,

It's amazing the power those subjects have to turn "YIMBY" into "regulate me harder daddy".

The cognitive dissonance required to enable this about face is a bad thing and seems to be becoming more and more prevalent and accepted in all sorts of public policy contexts.

It's because it's "regulate my neighbor" and it doesn't currently apply to them, until they need to remodel or whatever years down the road. Most people don't realize the full impact of the legislation they support.

How would they vote at all? I’m not aware of any local council that grants votes based upon tax dollars paid or acreage. It’s one person one vote for actual residents.

Now lobby dollars are another story. But renters can fix that by actually voting.

>How would they vote at all? I’m not aware of any local council that grants votes based upon tax dollars paid or acreage. It’s one person one vote for actual residents.

I don't know of any local councils that grant local votes to anyone -- they vote themselves. This should spark an idea of how rich people's dollars outweigh poor people's input. They only have to convince half of the council to vote one way. This can be done through wining and dining, sending "experts" to make presentations, making promises, and so on.

They can run/fund NIMBY groups that encourage people to vote their way.

Local to me, we've had a few causes pop up with surprisingly well-run NIMBY efforts opposing them in recent years. The amount of money raised and the signs and slogans are way too good to be the product of the actual locals who speak out on behalf of these groups - somebody else is clearly funding them and doing some marketing.

Of course they do, they can just buy advertising to convince locals to vote against their own interests. Works quite well. See uber and Prop 22.