When developers are allowed to build apartments, they build luxury apartments.
As long as profit is the motive, the affordability half is likely to be neglected.
I also feel like building more rental properties serves the property owners more than it does the "dweller".
"These are just for-profit developers building luxury apartments" is the single most common objection to new multifamily housing where I live. The irony of it is that it's always coming from single-family homeowners, all of whom practically by definition live in spaces more luxurious than any of the proposed apartments.
All new apartments are described as luxury. It's makes them easier to sell.
If land prices are high and it takes years to get approval to build then only expensive apartments will be built because cheap apartments won't make a profit.
If only expensive housing is allowed to be built then most people will only be able to afford to rent.
Which is what you'd expect to happen in a free market.
Absent a reason, why would developers voluntarily choose to build an option that would make them less money?
Either way refusing to allow apartments to be built because you fear they will be "luxury" is dumb. It just means that the only people who get to live there are the really rich who can afford a full-sized house.
So only 60+ stories towers gets built since the initial permitting cost is the same.