well....lets think abit...
if the town council had any say, do you think M.B would exist? The reason it got blocked before was because HLA was seeking a tax abatement. without it, they cant develop anything and not expect to go bankrupt - they have little cash, apparently, somehow. so the sly devils they figured out some loophole to get out of paying as many taxes by putting it where RCI is.
what i would have done would be sell the land they were going to build the original MB and use those proceeds to create/renovate an MB dorm on RCI land. now they're not paying anything extra in taxes, but got themselves a new cash cow and HLA population behavior management device. I think thats exactly what they did.