I agree with your sentiment about neighborhood groups using the law to protect their high property values, but you can, essentially, own a view. You can purchase the "air rights" above existing houses and buildings from their property owners if you wish to prevent them from building something taller and blocking your view. Trump World Tower in New York is an example of a building that did this.
If you can't convince the owners of such air rights to sell them to you at a rate you're willing to pay to guarantee the view, you don't deserve to prevent them by law from blocking your view (basically stripping them of their air rights without compensation).
If you were designing a new city from scratch, this makes sense. Much like in software, cities have "legacy systems" to deal with. In the case of homes in San Francisco, "air rights" had largely been priced into properties by way of historical architecture limitations (lack of elevators, then earthquake resilience).
What the zoning restrictions have done is serve as a mechanism to allocate air rights. Effectively, properties come with the air "in front of" them, not "above" them. This is reasonable, and consistent. I doubt anyone bought low-lying property in SF with the idea in replacing it with a skyscraper, but most people up on a hill definitely paid for the privilege. A shift in pricing of air rights would cause a dramatic market shift from the previously existing condition.
I agree with your sentiment about neighborhood groups using the law to protect their high property values, but you can, essentially, own a view. You can purchase the "air rights" above existing houses and buildings from their property owners if you wish to prevent them from building something taller and blocking your view. Trump World Tower in New York is an example of a building that did this.
If you can't convince the owners of such air rights to sell them to you at a rate you're willing to pay to guarantee the view, you don't deserve to prevent them by law from blocking your view (basically stripping them of their air rights without compensation).