At the end of the day they can only charge market prices, and the market prices are much more related to the city government than the agency. Greystar has tons of affordable units in [Houston](https://www.houstonhouseapts.com/floor-plans/#/), where there is no city zoning and construction is encouraged
The assertion is that Greystar participated in manipulation of market prices via illegal collusion between nominal competitors. As in, they participated in illegal data sharing between landlords, facilitated by RealPage, that allowed landlords to knowingly and systematically raise prices everywhere within a given market in an anti-competitive fashion. Zoning laws and the availability of subjectively affordable housing in any particular market is irrelevant, especially since housing is a somewhat captive market and there are very high barriers to leaving and seeking a better price in a different location.
Edit: Plus, this only applies to markets where enough renters were participating to make price fixing viable. No idea if Houston is one of them, maybe it is maybe it isn't.
