The cool solution I've seen to this problem is to have some process for identifying the class of people who are affected by [locally burdensome thing] and then allowing the proponents (a business, the government, etc.) to negotiate some settlement with that affected class directly, with a majority vote used to accept the settlement.

For example, everyone near the airport could get some property tax relief or share of an annual payment that would go away if the airport went away.

This way a small minority of vocal opponents cannot effectively oppose something that would be good for everyone, but if something is irredeemably terrible and unfair locally affected people can block it.