Based on the #MidwayRising project: 
The city's Development Department is only "giving land away" when the developers are also the largest contributors to @MayorToddGloria’s latest campaign. 

“It wasn’t contentious,” Laing said of the move to halt the project. “We demanded fair market value for the land, and that wasn’t going to happen under current conditions. They said they wouldn’t be able to make it pencil out, and we’re not in a position to be giving land away.”

Affordable housing plans for San Diego’s former Ritz-Carlton site collapse