It took an Austin developer 4 years to build 4 small homes that he made no money on as the city struggles to bridge the gap between tiny apartments and pricy houses

• Austin has built a ton of new housing in recent years as the city's population has boomed.

• But its restrictive zoning policies have made affordable, medium-density construction hard to build.

• One developer's struggles to build infill housing illustrate the city's challenges.

Scott Turner recently sold four homes that he built on what used to be a single corner lot in south central Austin. But the veteran real-estate developer didn't make a profit on the houses, despite selling the four of them for over $2.9 million.

It took two years for more than a dozen city departments to approve the development, which involved splitting one lot into two, and another two years for Turner to build the homes. By the time construction wrapped up, Austin's