> In (sub)urban housing in Australia it's against zoning for residential houses to have large tire piles (ie an entire yard of old car tyres with more house high stacks out the back) due to the dangers of dirty fires, ditto having a shipping container of fireworks next your house (and other houses in area), massive fuel tanks, etc.
From what I understand, planning regulations (Australia's "zoning laws") don't always specifically prohibit those things. Rather, it is illegal to have something dangerous on a property, especially a residential one – but rather than list every possible thing that could be dangerous, it is more that local government has the power to decide on a case-by-case basis, and you can challenge their decision in the courts if you disagree with it. Some of those things – such as explosives (fireworks) – are also primarily regulated by state agencies, rather than local governments (who have the primary responsibility for zoning). Unlike the US (for instance), we don't have local fire departments, the fire department (or "fire brigade" or "fire service" or "fire authority", which are more common terms in Australian English) is generally a state government agency, and it shares responsibility with local governments for fire safety. Zoning intersects with some aspects of fire safety – building setbacks are often partially motivated by fire safety concerns, but also by other concerns such as visual amenity – other aspects of fire safety regulation are really orthogonal to zoning.
> I dare say large battery walls were also zoned against until plans were in place re: standards, etc.
I don't think there was ever a rule per se against battery systems in residential areas (and especially not a "zoning" rule). There are a set of known risks that they pose – fire, arc flash, electric shock, chemical burns, etc – and you need to prove you are adequately managing those risks. Before commercial off-the-shelf systems were widely available, you'd have some bespoke system requiring review on a case-by-case basis – obviously that's a lot more time-consuming, expensive and uncertain in outcome. With a commercial off-the-shelf system, the manufacturer will get it approved as a type, and then it just becomes the much easier question if this particular install is following the rules for that type approval.