BS. It's not the government's place to decide the economic viability of projects, nor any other buttinskis, either. I'm in the process of getting a simple task taken care of now -- something harmless that would have been rubberstamped 10 years ago. Bureaucrats have so much momentum that routine stuff is like pulling teeth.
My brother recently had a house built on a regular city lot with no issues or plan corrections. Explain to him his 6 month wait and a $12,000 building permit. It's obscene how much we power we have given these turds.
As a member of the public, what price do you think I ought to place on your running pipe and wire through my property?
You can, of course, find perfectly usable building sites that have no public access at all.
Friend of my father's bought such a "landlocked" site years ago. He used to go down in the country and climb a nearby hill on public land to look over at it from time to time.
The other landowners refused to grant him an easement to access his lot.
At some point most of us simply do not have the resources to afford our own self-sufficient island and have to put up with the neighbors. That $12,000 fee is cheap by standards elsewhere.
Plus water retention accommodations, another $50,000 or so.