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I think this is a purely New York problem because NYC has been captured by an alliance of property owners and leftist activists who both oppose new development (albeit for differing reasons)

The result is that there is a shortage of housing in NYC and this system pops up to try and extract economic rents from the situation.

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Can you provide any examples of "leftist activists" opposing building non-luxury housing?

Not the original commenter but, from past articles I've read the most effective way to create affordable housing is to let developers build new luxury housing. That has the ripple effect of directing the old luxury housing to become more affordable, since it's no longer the new thing.

Unfortunately, the economics of building new housing on extremely expensive real estate, targeting an "affordable" price point just don't incentivize as much construction as the city needs.

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