No, it's zoning, codes, and covenants, and licensing that were all the barriers that stopped me from building a house in 99.9% of the USA. I ultimately found a place that allowed me to bypass that, which thankfully also has virtually zero public utilities or police/fire or services or taxes which is probably the thing scaring shitless any of the bootlickers from coming out here and making housing laws like the rest of the places.

If you were trying to build the kind of density of lot covered by building and other impermeable surface that you see in cities built out before the 70s (i.e. the stuff HN fawns over) stormwater stuff would prevent you.

A problem in a handful of cities does not justify the federal government micromanaging stormwater nation wide to the detriment of everyone who needs to have a roof over their head.

The clean water act literally outlaws cheap density via stormwater rules. Even if zoning permitted you can't just build an apartment building right up to your setback minimums like you could in the old days (without spending hundreds of thousands to possibly to comply).

Poor stormwater management has caused very expensive issues all over the country especially and including small towns from both flooding and pollution. I agree something needs to be done, but aimless deregulation is not it.

Blaming “environmentalism” for that is pretty silly.

I'm blaming useful idiots for uncritically peddling regulatory capture because someone put lipstick on it.