Either something's missing from the report of Vogl's argument, or she's trying to do something purely destructive in shutting down the startup offices. This seems to be the entirety of her case:
- The workers use up too many parking spaces.
- They're richer than us.
- They think we're poor.
- They commute to work instead of living in the office.
- They're untrustworthy because they're outsiders.
Did we read the same article? Vogl's argument seemed to rest on :
- These houses are residential properties.
- People are using them as commercial properties (offices, under the guise of 'live/work spaces')
- No one is stopping it, Zoning is not enforced there (because 'it's a poor neighborhood'), but zoning is enforced in wealthier areas (Johnson County).
The rest of the stuff you mention is true too. But I don't think it's the "entirety of her case" -- it's support for the case. "They commute to work instead of living in the office", for instance, is strong evidence that the property is commercial, not residential in nature.
This seems like a cut-and-dry zoning violation, that's being ignored because the area is "poor". I don't think she's being destructive, she's just asking for fair and equal treatment.
It's the same old suburban flight problem, except that it's happening to a residential neighborhood rather than a commercial city center.
They have parking problems: consider 4 small businesses in a 2000 sq ft house: that'll be 8 or 10 cars parked around the house, rather more than the property is designed for. I'd imagine traffic during commuting hours would be interesting, too, given that residential neighborhoods are usually laid out to prevent it.
The start-ups and the pseudo-commercial property owner are primarily interested in keeping costs low, rather than keeping the neighborhood viable. Residents can no longer expect infrastructure upgrades (other than street maintenance) if the commuters are in the same voting area. Even if they aren't, you can probably expect the tax base to go down since they probably will go back to their own neighborhoods to use other facilities.
Imagine she has a clone in the same governmental position right next door. This is a thought experiment, obviously.
Her neighborhood will have a slightly lower standard of living than her clone because the residents have no where to park, are not a cultural fit with the neighborhood, their voting patterns and motivations are not the same as their neighbors or are otherwise screwing up carefully gerrymandered districts (WRT funding local schools or police, for example).
Also there are likely zoning issues based on old laws, for example maybe the zoning laws somehow prohibit my long dead great grandfather from running a small accounting practice or a yoga studio next door by banning retail traffic, but somehow they're skirting the zoning laws by sneakily not allowing retail traffic or visitors or some other cheaty hack of the local zoning laws. This will also make her life a living hell when the zoning laws are inevitably changed to permit the outsiders and suddenly neighbor X is screaming because neighbor Y used the new loosened rules to sneak in an autobody repair business and is legally running a weld grinder at 2am every night and neighbor Z is dumping waste from his home electroplating business in his backyard.
Now she can't go out in public and start whining that she doesn't want to do work and take risks in exchange for the same salary she got for doing basically nothing, like in the past. And she can't whine in public about how they screwed up the perfectly gerrymandered districts. And she can't whine in public about cultural fit because we tolerate, even encourage, that in business but in public thats just old fashioned racism, whatever-ism, etc, and that doesn't fly in public. But she can go in public and rant about how "they hate us because we cling to our God and our guns" and "they hate us because they're rich" or whatever. So she's a bundle of hate and anger but all she can say in public about it is babble.
So from an empathy standpoint, whats in it for her? Oh nothing? But there is a huge potential downside? Well there you go.
- The workers use up too many parking spaces.
- They're richer than us.
- They think we're poor.
- They commute to work instead of living in the office.
- They're untrustworthy because they're outsiders.