Comment by tomnipotent

> nobody seemed to act in any way negligently

The whole point is that there's a legal system that allows a plaintiff to make an argument that there was negligence at play, and OP outlined a logical list of examples of how it could be argued up to the government itself being negligent for zoning. It's the job of the legal system to remove the ambiguity of "seemed", particularly in the context of tort and compensation.

This example just happens to be less obvious than a construction company building a house or bridge that collapses and kills people, and most cases in front of a court are equally ambiguous.