City says you need x amount of parking, the developers will plan accordingly... But if the city says you need 2x amount of parking, that's takes a chunk of the 5 acres... One might say it takes twice the amount of space as previous... Land doesn't come from nothing. So the developer will then be forced to build fewer units, whether townhomes or apartments to accommodate the additional parking. If the developer had planned to make $500,000 on the whole project, that might be cut down to $350,000 to accommodate the additional parking spots. Developers will then raise the price or do something to make up the difference because $$$ is the bottom line.

My question, though, is why are you blaming developers for following the city ordinance which called for two spots per unit? That's not the developers fault.