town planning...the wonder of our age

Imagine the situation. A small plot of land, crammed in between a road and a main railway line, on the edge of a residential area. It used to be workshops that served the community - car repairs, light industry. The developers chose to evict those workshops, demolish the buildings and dump containers on the rubble. They then did nothing for ten years. The local residents wanted the land to be used to ease the local car parking problems; the council were aware the land was liable to flood, was rather noisy, and local services were over stretched already.

So what have the local planners done? The developers came up with two plans - one for a small block; one for a much bigger block. The planners found reasons to reject the small block and said yes to the big one (ignoring the reasons they'd said no to the small one).