That definition is the core problem the court is contorting itself to address in the way that it likes. Development has quite a few plain-English definitions. One of them seems plenty straightforward and applicable: A project consisting of one or more commercial or residential buildings.

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/development

was the law intended by the legislators to apply to individual, single family home builds?

like, did their definition match the one you referenced that includes a single home?

Well so that's the problem, right? The legislature never defined it. So we're left to argue amongst ourselves and use dictionaries, leading to cherry picks. The did, however, state that the intent of the law was to promote housing regardless of economic segment.