that's good old fashioned predujice, short-termism, close-mindedness.
they just don't want to live next to anything (which I get), they don't like change (sure, I get that too, buy that's how you get historical landromats) then they realize they can't get that (as you would have to buy the land to keep it from being used), so the next best thing is to make it as similar to theirs as possible... (which ironically makes their house worth a bit less, because of increased low-quality supply leads to slightly lower price locally)
increasing density leads to having higher-quality services around, which would increase value
