Instead he would like to end the lease and has decided he wants to sell the property instead.He has proposed refunding all amounts that I have given him plus an amount for the time and sunk costs that I have already incurred into preparing to move in. 

Tonight is the night, after months of work with the state, county, and city we are presenting a site plan for the city's approval and zone change.Normally, I would not pursue a zone change but when I originally went to the city and proposed storage units based on its current zoning they said they wanted more houses.

I ask because general principles of contract law generally do NOT prevail over regulatory constructs arising out of specific enabling legislation.

Heck- this legislative session, the state just passed a law stating that no city can pass any laws regarding rent controls or limiting the fees that a landlord can charge.

I propose buying the house for 20,000 and then find someone else to buy it for 28,000.2.

The proposed plan which got approved is to expand it from 1800 sf to 4235 sf, and initially I speculated that this may cost $300-350k to do and budgeted it accordingly.

So initially I proposed only a 5 year increase knowing that I did not want to have a 10 year lease with rent so low especially if I go to sell the building - it would be an unattractive investment.The new partner proposed to have no increase in the first year, then $50 after every year for the remaining 10 years. 

I will propose another date soon.

Crazy...Agree, you're starting to see legislation addressing this.

There is a delicate balance somewhere between keeping legislation strong enough to protect homeowners, while also not burdening the industry so much that people choose to do work illegally as you suggested, or take unnecessary time to deliver a finished project (and thus a home for somebody in this case).