"It's not illegal, you can still do it if you jump through the mile long list of rules we've come up with to theoretically advance noble goals but in reality they're all like 10% noble goals and 90% driving business to parties we've liked all the years with the end result being massively raising the cost floor and minimum viable development"

-people who've never tried to do anything involving real estate or land development

And then these idiots have the gall to complain "why isn't anyone doing infill development" and "why isn't anyone putting apartment buildings on small lots?" etc, etc. IDK, maybe because your dumb ass made it illegal to do those things in a way that makes them have a snowball's chance in hell of being in the black. And that's just residential. Commercial is even worse because you get fucked by all the rules that apply to structures and then you get fucked again by all the rules that apply to your use. And don't get me started on how much of this is inherited from the feds in the form of "to qualify for grants the state shall adopt..." type rules which the states then roll downhill onto the municipalities. This is why every "new X" site plan looks damn near the same regardless of what state it's in. They're all designed to comply with rules that were written to satisfy the same requirements.

See also:

"But the regulations I like are the good ones"

Those people are stupid too. That's like littering and saying "but it's only a little, my trash isn't responsible for how dirty the whole place is"