I think you have to take account of how many people living in the base. In my tribe we are starting up recruiting, but wanted space for new recruits when they joined.
This required us to Make 4 separate sections in our base. Elder living quarters, elder vault, member living quarters, and member vault. This took quite a bit of space to build, including chicken farm, and standard farm. We had to gather the mats to build each of these sections, so it limited us in a way, but to force limitations on people would go against the spirit of the game.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen 100×30 or so areas…with nothing inside, so a player could just “claim” the area, which is obnoxious, but not all players do that, and some need the space, especially when building on a tribe level.