And builders aren’t interested in building anything but McMansions.
True. The impact fees cities are charging developers are out of control.
In my town for years we could count on commercial growth and the subsequent expanding tax base to offset any costs incurred by the city in running power, water, and sewers out to new developments. Now the commercial developers are slow to move into a new area. Without that tax revenue, and since the bulk of the property tax goes to the county and the state, the city is left holding the bag for the costs of the infrastructure. They have no choice but to charge developers for these costs.
With this big additional price per home tacked onto the cost, builders are constructing more expensive houses to keep their margins up. THEN we get the libs in the city moaning that we have no affordable housing. The larger businesses also complain that their lower paid employees have to commute from the..ahem..less desirable, far away, parts of Albuquerque and it is hard to keep them.
Proposals are made to rezone certain areas to allow multi-family housing - read apartments - and homeowners lose their minds. No one wants the property values in THEIR neighborhood driven down by riff raff in apartments!
All the while, the McMansions sell...so the builders plan for more of them...