The zoning conundrum

They neither applied for zoning of their land nor have any intention of either developing that land or selling it on for development. They should not be forced to pay the tax or, more likely, must sell it anyway as no farm enterprise could carry such an onerous annual tax burden. There is another cohort of landowners who would like to see their land developed at some stage and would be quite happy to retain the zoning status. Naturally, they do not want to pay an annual three per cent tax on the land. If the land is not critical to housing requirements in an area, then affected landowners should have the option of having their land de-zoned. It will be interesting to see the percentage of owners who take the opt-out option. When the country has an annual requirement of, conservatively, 50,000 houses for the next two decades, then we cannot have it both ways. Either zoned land must be de-zoned, developed, or put on the market for development.