It is more complicated than that. A few years back when my youngest entered 1st grade, I attended some meetings where the superintendent talked about school expansions in the pipeline due to confirmed property development projects.

Namely, when new housing is added, there are infrastructure considerations and corresponding expenses that translate to higher taxes. Civil planners have formulas for how much the student population will grow based on the housing density/type.

Schools built on parcels based on 1970's population now have to expand to fit more students or the township has to find and acquire new land to build a new school.

That requires raising taxes for bonds. A new school is several million dollars and then hiring staff. NJ has a legal limit of 25:1 in elementary. Add 100 students and you add at least 4 teachers that have to be supported by taxpayers. Expand the lunchroom, build a new gym, purchase new computers, all the ways up the chain for the next 12 years.

If you ever look at your municipal tax bill, you will find that education is going to be the biggest expense by far.

On top of that, roads may need to be widened. New roads have to be built and maintained. Municipal staff may need to increase.

Some services may actually benefit from economies of scale (waste collection). Most will not.

Imagine you bought a house in 1970 (i.e. my development) and you were paying $1000 annual property taxes. Now your property taxes are $12000 because of the increased spend on infrastructure and increased assessed value. You're a retiree and you've paid taxes for 2 or 3 generations of students. You live on a fixed income and your property taxes are a higher and higher proportion of your income. What do you do? Mortgage the house to pay taxes to fund more growth?

The problem is exacerbated because obviously people want to go where the good schools are, where it's low crime, good infra, easy access to transportation. That drives demand and puts pressure on services while also raising taxes to pay to fund municipal bonds for growth.

End of the day, my personal belief is that housing is a right. But I can also see why middle class folks, retirees end up pushing back when they get the bill in the form of increased property taxes. I've lived in my house 10 years now and my taxes have gone up ~$3500 in that time. Every school in the township had to expand to meet population growth with the additional units. Sure, my home value went up as well, but I can't cash that out. I can't imagine how it feels for retirees that are living in a family home here.

It's just as much "change is scary" and "I like this as it is." It's a very human reaction.

They are the ones who show up at local political fundraising galas and constantly report local issues influencing municipal/state priorities.

Although it's not just NIMBY. There's a million rules about building housing and developing land from zoning, environmental, indigenous, or social ends. Which are arguably luxury self-benefiting priorities for people who already own houses. Plus all the activists who think the government can both make development extremely expensive via endless rules while affording to fund mass government housing at the same time.