>No one would be happy if you tore down a block of apartments in NY to put up a cute little Craftsman with room for a private dirt bike track.

If you own the land you should be able to do what you want with it. If you want a single family home, that is fine. If you want a 10-plex, also fine. Cities are making development and renting as painful as possible then being shocked when people opt out of being landlords. If it is more desirable to have a craftsman and a dirtbike track than a multi unit building then the city's incentives are horribly skewed. One of those effectively prints money so we have to ask why someone isn't opting to do it. At the same time, it is their land and they should be able to use it how they wish.