Sabbatical disruption: common annoyance or warning sign?
I work at an R1 institution and we've had a similar, if not more stringent policy in place for at least a decade. I will say that the sabbatical review, like the tenure review, process is different for different disciplines, but I can also say from first-hand committee experience that the policy changes are stemming from what some might call the abuses by the older, tenured faculty, not young tenure-track faculty. 

The internal soap opera at many schools right now is around the senior faculty who teach one or two classes a year, advise two or three students a year, and claim their sabbatical every 5 years in order to re-edit a book they published decades previously. Upon completion of their sabbatical, those seniors submit a one-page memo to the Dean declaring the whole experience a success because they updated the footnotes of said book. Meanwhile junior faculty are teaching 500+ freshmen in each of their 3 classes, trying to publish, patent, and mentor. 

Honestly, the process of documenting or time-tabling the work of the sabbatical is meant to provide accountability on both sides. If you are a scientist who needs computing time or a laboratory and the department has committed the resource to you during your sabbatical and then fails to deliver, you have proof of the broken deal. Deans and Vice Presidents of Research are starting to take this seriously, and they are starting to notice when some departments systematically fail to deliver.

The assumption that the policy is meant to or might potentially harm researchers is misplaced. If you see hardworking, grant-carrying faculty who want to finish their  NIH R21 and is denied sabbatical, start asking questions. If you see the guy who only ever shows up for the faculty retreat and hasn't published since the 1980s get denied, go kiss your regents.