Qualified immunity is what prevents you from personally suing each member of the planning commission to pressure them in to reversing their decision. Think of it like the legal system throwing an exception, we aren't even going to consider this because your beef is with the city not an individual employee.
Police have qualified immunity because otherwise they would face personal lawsuits every time they wrote a rich guy a speeding ticket, or a convicted murderer has nothing better to do but get his law degree in prison.
In my opinion, qualified immunity is _not_ the problem. If an officer does something in their official capacity that is wrong, it is up to the department and the DA to deal with. Just like if the hypothetical planning commission did something illegal. Unfortunately police unions prevent that from being a viable option.
Exactly: this should really be in the realm of criminal prosecution, not civil suits, in which case the positives of qualified immunity could remain in place. But we have such a toxic, broken, in-group culture in our police force that we cannot rely on self-directed justice to happen. So I think we have no other option but to open the floodgates on civil suits.
Anyone can make a complaint to them, and they will investigate, and if they believe the law has been broken, can prosecute individuals (in a regular court) or fine police departments as they see fit.
Both my parents were retired Police, and I know there's a lot of good people that work in those fields. I also know that not every community, situation or person is the same and there are a lot of people on power trips that even fellow cops don't always like. It's often hard to speak out from within a group.
Some of the more recent events are particularly grievous and should absolutely be prosecuted... There are many more incidents that should be as well. I tend to say it's rarely (though sometimes is) about race, it's usually a matter of blue vs everyone else.