It may be a simple misunderstanding.

LMK if I'm misunderstanding and always appreciate your ideas! 

Sorry to misunderstand, and thank you for clarifying. 

Please read my post to it's entirety as I think there might be a misunderstanding.  

He says I'm not misunderstanding the contract and in this case it's better to ask for a price reduction, but HERE'S the kicker he then tells me to CANCEL any appointments I have with contractors (he only knows of one I have) until we know if this is going to go through.

I wanna make sure I'm not neglecting or misunderstanding something?

Those areas are ripe for misalignment and misunderstanding - each one interpreting things to their benefit.Ideally, I would like to build a relationship with a GC but I have seen multiple investors get the run around from their builders / GCs

Don’t misunderstand I am willing to make thing mutually beneficial just done with it being one sided.

From an investment standpoint, I'm interested in knowing if they all petitioned the city to allow it (like you alluded to) or if I'm misunderstanding the zoning code, because the whole "district" is zoned R-2-N like mine.

People tend to conflate what happened after the recession with what happened during the recession, and the effect is again a misunderstanding that MFRE “does well” during recessions.