[
    {
        "text": "Many regional councils are struggling with zombie developments often involving very large parcels of land. For decades, developers purchased land along the Eastern seaboard hoping one day to make their fortune by sub dividing the acreages into housing lots.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "After purchase, they submit a development application and in doing so enter a contract with the council that both parties agree that subdivision could occur under the rules of the day. They then sit on that land until it gains value and the market needs land.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "In my own LGA, several of these developers are now resurrecting their plans to develop the land. The problem is that many of these were approved 30 or more years ago when rules were very different. Because they have approval in principle, they are then able to move forward without input from local planning authorities or the need to meet a Biodiversity Development Assessment report. They are able to evade legislative enacted to ensure that biodiversity targets and threatened species are protected.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "You have to look at the bigger picture to see the impact of this. It’s not about isolated patches of land but about habitat destruction up and down the coast from 10 - 100 acres.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "Add in the destruction of the recent bushfires and floods and rampant land clearing for agriculture, and it’s a planning disaster. Some communities are seeing the only remaining patches of bushland left in their towns after the fires being razed so that zombie developments can occur.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "The final insult is that the land is priced beyond the reach of those who live in these often small communities where wages are lower than the ACT, Melbourne or Sydney, so it’s not even like it’s providing housing for local people. They end up as empty holiday homes or short term rentals.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "Sooner or later Australians are going to have to come to grips with the fact that much of Australia is inhabitable, and that the land along the coast is in short supply and often constrained by terrain, ( floodplain & mountain ranges) and National parks. There’s only one major inland river system which is significantly degraded by water theft.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "We have to decide whether ‘big Australia’ is good for Australia or Australians and start acting accordingly.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "Not a single one of those regional councils will allow high density in their backyards though so it's incredibly hypocritical. It's their zoning practices.",
        "extra_info": ""
    },
    {
        "text": "You want to stop landclearing? Allow 30 storey apartments to be built in the middle of town.",
        "extra_info": ""
    }
]