Land Development Opinion

I recently purchased a 200acre piece of ground located minutes from Selinsgrove, PA. This trabct has a farmhouse 3 bed 2 bath, 4 car garage, and two barns. I am currently renting the house for 850 month and the land to a farmer for 10500 per year. What made this property extremely desireable to me was the 1 mi road frontage on two different roads. Also this property has a small 8 acre tract cut out of it with residential homes on it.

So my question, what is my first step to get this property looked at to see its potential. Do I take my survey that I had done to a land planner to see how many lots can be put on the tract. The property is not served by public water and sewer.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated!

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 04:45AM

Jon Holdman

Real Estate Investor · Wheat Ridge, Colorado

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Feb 25 '08, 06:49 AM

First step would be to talk to the controlling government body about what you can do with it. Really, you should have done that before purchasing it. If its inside city limits, its usually a city planning and zoning department or some such. If outside a city, it will likely be a county department.

The agency will have some set of guidelines about land use. These will specify how the land can be used, the size of parcels, and what you have to do to build on it. After you find these out, you can begin the process to subdivide it. Be aware that in many areas this process is neither cheap nor quick. The fact that 8 acres were developed and 200 were left as farm is a clue there is some issue.

Another first step would be to determine the possible economics of the development. If existing houses are cheap relative to land and constructions costs, and supply is high, it may not be worth developing even if the agency says " do whatever you want" . If prices are high and supply is low, it may be worth taking on a major battle.

Jon

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 04:46AM

Jon Holdman, Flying Phoenix LLC

Danny Kay

Developer · Smyrna, GA

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Feb 25 '08, 06:46 PM

basically what wheatie said, but slightly different. Here is a copy paste from a post of mine a couple years ago.

http://forums.biggerpockets.com/viewtopic.php?t=3243&highlight=

Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2006 9:22 am

Personally i would take a few BASIC steps, and one of them is NOT " just buying the land and hoping to get zoning and a LDP for I want"

1. ZONING- can you get what you need, density?? style of housing?? ect ect TALK to you county commissioner and/or one of the zoning heads about your intents (talk them to lunch, visit their office, give them flowers lol, just anything to get the county on your side)

2. COMMUNITY- will the community support this type of housing (talk to other developers, visit projects of similar nature preferably in the same area and price bracket).

3. PRELIM LAND PLANNING- do a preliminary layout, please remember stream buffers, specimen trees, ANY jurisdictional waters (its a good idea to have you county water systems guy come walk your property with you to verify any jurisdictional water systems and what the required state and county buffers are for those systems). Also, flood maps are great for prelim, GIS mapping, and FLUM (Future Land Use MAp) are a must look at. Also, verify ALL utilities (don't believe that dang Realtor for one min Wink ) go to the county for sewer and water. Call elec to verify that can increase capacity to withstand your development.

3.a. - Know what the county likes. Get a development standards book so you can understand what and why a engineer should do something. And just because another developer got approved for a certain style project near by doesn't mean you will. Remember standards are changing constantly, and just because that subdivision has this construction feature in it, doesn't mean you can too (doesn't mean you cant either). Did that make any sense at all?

3.b. - COE Core Of Engineers.. These people are a pain in the arse, get a good Environmental company to do your Phase 1 and any permitting you might have to do for stream crossings, wetland compensation, ect. Also, your enviro. company will delineate wetlands for you and transfer the info to your civil eng. There is some type of Core approval the company needs to delineate wetlands, not sure what it is, sry. Your civil eng. will delineate floodplain for you. If your stream free, you SHOULD be able to sleep at night :Wink:

Ok thats very basics, off the top of my head. Im not a writer, so i have my fingers crossed that it makes sense.

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 04:46AM

Toby Munk

Residential Real Estate Broker · Aspen, CO

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Feb 26 '08, 03:45 AM

I have to admit you have some ball. For all yo know there could be a conservation easement on the whole 200 acres and you could do nothing with it?

I would suggest to check these things out before an offer or while under due diligence before the contract goes hard.

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 04:46AM

Danny Kay

Developer · Smyrna, GA

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Feb 26 '08, 09:01 PM

Originally posted by "Toby_Munk"

I have to admit you have some ball. For all yo know there could be a conservation easement on the whole 200 acres and you could do nothing with it?

I would suggest to check these things out before an offer or while under due diligence before the contract goes hard.

I was under the impression he got it to rent primarily. Thought didn't cross my mind he might have bought it planning on developing it with out the obvious DD. eeeekk! BALLS is right!

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 04:46AM

Bart Pair

· Melbourne, Florida

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Feb 27 '08, 07:14 PM

When you find out the present zoning of the property, the future land use and the local agencies comprehensive plan for how they see the area being developed (all can be done at the local planning office) you will have a much better idea of what you have just bought.

If the land could in any way be developed into something more than single family residential lots, i.e. if there is any multi-family or commercial component than I would advise you to hire someone qualified to help you with the site planning of the development. Your local planner or engineer may do you a disservice if they don't have considerable experience in developments of this size. (Noticed I didn't include architects in that list - from my experience most architects are great at building design but shouldn't try to do land planning.)

If you have never done any development like this before than it would make sense to partner with someone who has (or flip it entirely) once you have a site plan of the property's potential.

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 04:46AM

Brandon Clark

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Mar 10 '08, 12:50 AM

Thanks for the responses gents.

Believe it or not the area I'm in has NO ZONING! I can do what I please with the land!

I had the place surveyed and there are no conservation easements or anything that would keep me from being able to put houses on it. For the area I would only do single family lots. I was only thinking of subdividing the property into 1, 5, and 10 acre parcels. After much research I found this is what the area need more of.

Back to the ZONING thing. I'm being told that the area will have zoning laws within the next 5 years so I guess it would be who of me to get this thing going.

If this is the case I think I understand everyone correctly. My next step would be to take my survey to the engineer and have him come up with a proto of what this place would look like with the size lots I want. IE: how many and where these lots would fit?

Wheatie, actually the 8 acres was given to the son of the father who owned this property. I guess he didn't like the son enough to give him the whole farm:)

Thanks again for your input everyone.

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 04:50AM

Bart Pair

· Melbourne, Florida

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Mar 10 '08, 08:36 AM

bpclark0911,

check with your local agency to see what the requirements for subdividing the property are. Often you can do large lot sizes vary cheaply but smaller lot sizes require a much more stringent permitting and approval process and significantly more money.

It might impact your decision on what you develop. For example, it could be very easy and cheap to split up the property into 5 acre parcels or greater. You may only need to do a metes and bounds description of the new parcels and avoid a plat process and avoid getting council approval. In such a situation, you may not even need to hire an engineer - a good surveyor could do it.

But if you subdivide it into anything smaller than 5 acres, you may be required to plat the entire project, be subject to council approval and be required to have public meetings about the project. You will definitely need to hire an engineer and you will definitely spend more money. (You can potentially make more money with smaller lots, but it is good to know your options up front.)

It should only take a phone call to your local planning and zoning department to figure out if there exists such a threshold for different subdivisions.

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 04:50AM

Brandon Clark

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Aug 11 '08, 09:45 PM

I Have an update on this.

I finally have a plan from the engineer. I decided to keep 50 acres to the side for investment purposes and develop roughly 125 acres. I was able to get 27 lots ranging from 3-15 acres a piece.

We have consulted with Soil Conservation and the County Planning Office.

Here is what they want. And I'm open to your comments, so please comment:)

The SCS wants a wetland delineation and NPDES permit in addition to the normal E&S plan and stormwater controls. I have started soil tests on 12 lots costing me a total of $5340 for the permits. I will updated as I have more developments.

My questions.

Does anyone know what is reasonable as far as costs go for the surveyor who has voluntered to do the soil tests?

Also, what can I expect to pay for all of these permits?

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 05:39AM

Corey Williams

Developer · Fishers, Indiana

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Aug 12 '08, 02:46 AM

I have never used a surveyor to do my soil testing. I would advise hiring a local geotechnical engineer to take the soil samples and do the testing. They typically have soil scientists in-house that can analyze the soil for you and provide you with a detailed report of the conditions and give you recommendations on how to prepare the soil for construction. Since you mentioned that there is no sewer or water, they can inform you on septic performance. Right now I am paying about $6000 to $8000 to have 20 soil borings taken to a depth of 20 feet.

The permit fees you are asking about are relatively cheap. Usually a few hundred dollars takes care of it. It is the cost of preparing the plans that gets pricey. A wetland delineation is a site visit by an Environmental Engineer who looks for standing water, plant life subject to the standing water, and soil conditions that hold water. It is actually a little more involved than that sounded but you should get the point. They will mark these wetland areas (if they exist) and are you are required to avoid them or obtain a permit to impact them. If wetlands are involved the process can get pretty time consuming, and costly but with your 3 - 15 acre lots you may be able to avoid impacting them which will save you a lot of time and money.

I hope this isn't too confusing. It is difficult to speculate all that you might run into. I investigate new developments every day and it comes pretty easy to me but without knowing the site it is not easy to comment.

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 05:40AM

Kyle Gibson

Real Estate Consultant · Chandler, Arizona

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Oct 06 '08, 04:34 AM

Originally posted by Brandon Clark

I Have an update on this.

I finally have a plan from the engineer. I decided to keep 50 acres to the side for investment purposes and develop roughly 125 acres. I was able to get 27 lots ranging from 3-15 acres a piece.

We have consulted with Soil Conservation and the County Planning Office.

Here is what they want. And I'm open to your comments, so please comment:)

The SCS wants a wetland delineation and NPDES permit in addition to the normal E&S plan and stormwater controls. I have started soil tests on 12 lots costing me a total of $5340 for the permits. I will updated as I have more developments.

My questions.

Does anyone know what is reasonable as far as costs go for the surveyor who has voluntered to do the soil tests?

Also, what can I expect to pay for all of these permits?

Just out of curiosity, who set the acreage amounts for the lots? What is the typical lot size that home builders take down in that area? 15 acres for a lot sounds huge to me and I'll bet you could be missing out on some extra $ by not getting more lots. If your going to all the expense of entitling this land, you might as well do it as a developer would, Since that is who you will be selling it to. If you want to e-mail me the site plan the engineer came up with I'd be glad to take a look at it and see if there are any inefficiencies in it. I do this for a living!

-Kyle

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 06:04AM by Administrator : EMAIL REMOVED

Brandon Clark

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May 05 '09, 04:23 AM

UPDATE. So I've been moving forward. I'm able to get about 15-20 good testing soil lots out of this parcel. The problem, I'm being told none of the sites are suitable for a inground septic system. What are my options, keeping in mind development costs.

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 08:08AM

RAY BROGDEN

Architect · CAMDEN, New Jersey

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Jun 25 '09, 11:43 PM

Hey Brandon,

I think your at the point to hire a good architect to walk you through this process. He should be familiar with doing developments that you are looking to build and give you ballparks for each line item if not find one that is able to do that. The good ones are able to do that and not worry to much about their fluff designs...

Edited: 06/26/2010 at 08:45AM