Not at all defending the decision, but in support of your comment: construction can ruin a small business. If construction routes traffic around your business, or causes people to go to other, more convenient locations - even if only temporarily - the business loses income. They still have to pay rent during construction; they still have to pay salaries, and keep the lights on, only now there’s less money coming in. And maybe some customers get used to going somewhere else and never come back. But it’s that short-term that kills you.

Big companies have reserves and resources to weather one, two years of downturn knowing that in three years business will be better. A small business may not survive to see the future improvement.

There are solutions; city council can mandate rent reductions, or provide subsidies from taxes to businesses to make up for the interruption. But someone is going to get it in the shorts. Residents may have a tax increase to help cover the subsidies; property owners get less income from the rent, yet still have to pay property taxes and perform maintenance using less income. At any rate, it’s a sort of butterfly wings effect - it’s not a simple as it seems. How do you help keep those businesses alive during the disruption? Who do you transfer the financial pain onto?

Personally? I think the answer is always “Elon Musk” or “Jeff Bezos”, via coin flip, but that’s just me.