A landowner could appeal to the Land and Environment Court if a development application was refused, but not on zoning.

Then so-called ''pre-gateway'' reviews were introduced, allowing developers to apply to a regional planning panel for a review of a council's refusal to rezone land.

The panel makes a recommendation to the planning minister, who can then pass the application through the gateway, a checkpoint in the planning process.

There are 40 pre-gateway applications being processed by Planning, and a war of words has broken out between Planning Minister Brad Hazzard and the Better Planning Network, an organisation leading opposition to his planning reforms.

The network, which claims affiliation with 450 groups, wants pre-gateway reviews scrapped because it says they are ''just another way for developers to trash the wishes of councils and communities''.

A spokeswoman for the minister called the network ''the ideological offspring of the Greens, who are more interested in their own political backyard, or actual backyard, than protecting the environment''.

The trigger for the Better Planning Network's demand was an application by Meriton for a density of 98 dwellings per hectare on land in Warriewood, in Mr Hazzard's electorate.

The density recommended in a review by Pittwater Council and the department is 32 per hectare.

Meriton's application was turned down a fortnight ago, but Warriewood Residents Association went ahead with a protest outside Parliament House last week because they expect Meriton to resubmit an application for about 60 dwellings per hectare.

The department said proposals that exceeded the recommended density would be considered on their individual merits.

Of 48 pre-gateway applications, most of them for developments in Sydney, four have been refused, four withdrawn, 15 approved and 25 await determination.