They knew the height of the bridge. They knew the planned height of the yacht. The started building anyway without first asking. They simply presumed they could get what they wanted. How? Well the article explains how very well.
> He added: "From an economic perspective and maintaining employment, the municipality considers this a very important project."
The veiled threat being "Oh, you like having jobs here? Would be a shame if something happened to that."
And of course they could just not put the mast on here, and do it elsewhere, but:
> it was "not practical" to partially finish the vessel and complete the build elsewhere. "If you carry out a big job somewhere, you want all your tools in that place. Otherwise you have to go back and forth constantly. In addition, this is such a large project that there are hardly any locations where this work is finished."
IE: We do have other places we could do this work, but just not as cheaply as we can do it here, by inconveniencing the local population for days by removing their bridge.
And Rotterdam will probably do what they say. Because they're right- the corporations do control them this way.