A Brisbane City Council plan to stop townhouses and apartments being built in areas for single homes is "going backwards" in terms of urban planning, experts say.

University of Queensland Urban Planning expert Dr Dorina Pojani said the Lord Mayor's attempt to "save the Brisbane backyard" could drive up property prices.

"If you have more apartment buildings in neighbourhoods it means that you have higher densities in those neighbourhoods," Dr Pojani said.

"With higher densities you can support much better public transport, if you have very low densities … then public transport will never become viable.

Council's opposition planning spokesman, Jared Cassidy, described it as "a multi-million-dollar mea culpa".

"The same Lord Mayor who has waved through the worst developments in Brisbane's history is now claiming he's saving the backyard," he said.

Dr Pojani said restricting the type of housing in certain neighbourhoods would just drive prices "through the roof", and it had already produced "disastrous results" in the United States.

"We're already in the middle of a housing crisis in Australia so it's the opposite of what we need at the moment."

Brisbane City Council wants to stop townhouses and apartments being built in areas for single homes. ( ABC RN: David Lewis )

"It's caused urban sprawl, it's caused problems with access to housing because housing prices end up being very expensive if you can't have the higher densities that apartments provide," Dr Pojani said.

"It makes neighbourhoods more homogeneous because there's only certain people that can afford family homes.

"Now that we've seen all that of that experience from overseas we go and do the same thing in Australia, that's very disappointing. It's almost like going backwards."

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the plan was about creating a city of neighbourhoods "to protect the Brisbane backyard", with more than 100,000 people responding to the Plan Your Brisbane campaign.

"It's about stopping the cookie-cutter style of townhouses in some cases that we have seen in our city," Cr Quirk said.

Experts say the plan will drive up property prices. ( Giulio Saggin: ABC News )

He said 40 action plans had been developed, which would not contribute further to urban sprawl.

"People said they wanted the growth to occur around the inner-city areas, along transport corridors, and around the regional business centres and nothing has changed in that regard," Cr Quirk said.

"What they do want though is greater protections in those single-dwelling areas of the city, that's come through loud and clear and that will be provided."

He said the council would also develop a new forum for residents to help guide the preservation of tradition designs, like the Queenslander.

Mr Cassidy hit out at the Lord Mayor's close relationship with developers at the expense of residents.

"Brisbane's had a gutful of the orgy of over-development," he said.

"The same Lord Mayor who cut the number of car parks that unit developers have to provide is now trying to pretend someone else did it.

"The same Lord Mayor who has waved through the worst developments in Brisbane's history is now claiming he's saving the backyard."