The city then ends up with insufficient or poorly designed infrastructure that off-loads costs and impacts into the public realm, and especially into the environment. Builders are allowed to build without sufficient systems going in to deal with traffic - or community designs to reduce traffic. If incentives and requirements were matched, so that builders were encouraged to install the most efficient lighting and appliances, it would reduce both the monthly costs to power the home and the need to build expensive new plants or burn excessive amounts of polluting fuels. Improvements to building standards may indeed increase costs to new buyers, but can significantly reduce costs and impacts to both the owner and the taxpayer in the long term. Builders are required to install water-saving toilets in both new units and in old ones at the time of sale.
High costs are a factor in any project.
You can design nifty lower-priced homes. Siting them can be pure torture. We must discover ways to provide housing for the middle and lower ends of the market. When the markets fail, people still need shelter. All the current indicators are showing that we need to increase those standards in the face of runaway growth.