The planning framework is simply not being applied properly, as underresourced councils fail to get to grips with making coherent local plans and out-of-town developers fill their boots".
But while funding is the most important issue, it's far from the only one: what do we do about planning permission, the green belt, new towns, developers' land banks, inefficient building methods, minimum space standards and reviving the small and medium-sized housebuilding sector?
Siu was trying to become a small-town developer, building and selling houses among the paddy fields near his village, and Wong opened his own restaurant.
"They're going to give our property to an out-of-town developer who is going to put another yacht club here," he said.
But last month, when the local newspaper announced that an out-of-town developer had bought the Doty House -- a pre-Revolutionary War farmhouse situated on Mountain Avenue, part of which dates to the 1740's -- conversations abruptly switched to the past tense.
Mr. Cali and Mr. Plofker both have very high profiles in town, as developers and as philanthropists.
Beginning with low-cost row houses and town houses, developers gradually shifted to moderately priced condominiums aimed at middle-class urban families and luxury condominiums for the wealthy.
The town allowed developers to set purchase prices for the land, but made clear that it did not intend to discount property taxes.
At the edges of town, the developers are still at work, and streets with such names as Crestview and Forest Park run through sections of half-acre lots before dead-ending in the woods.
To win aprovals from the town, the developers agreed to build 26 of the houses as semiattached units and to cluster the homes on 5,000-square-foot 5,000-square-foot 5,000-square-footnt of the property as woods.
