Site due diligence checklist

[Bob Ross]

Does anyone use a due diligence checklist for determining if a site is a good buy for developing a single family or duplex home (or anything g else) Is it something you developed yourself over time or did you purchase or find one online?  How do you ensure to conduct proper due diligence when purchasing a new site?

[Ke Nan Wang]

Every local municipality has different development regulations and it's regulated by your local planning and zoning department. Sometimes it's the county, sometimes it's the city, sometimes you have overlaps. If you are a nobody, people who works in each perspective office only care about your project is meeting their requirements or not. So I doubt there's a development checklist online. And development is a huge liability, no one is gonna take on that liability but the developer themselves. 

Typically you can pay some local expert to do a feasibility study for you in the price range of $3k or more. For SFR it's most cost efficient for the developer to go talk to the planning and zoning department and go from there.

I regard myself as an expert in development for St. Johns County, and we have the City of St. Augustine and St. Augustine Beach in our area as well. Simply amongst these municipalities, the planning and zoning requirements are night and day. When I moved to Duval County (Jacksonville), it's another complete new set of rules. 

But in big broad strokes, here are the things I need to resolve for my area:

1. Planning and Zoning. Is the property zoned for what you want to build. Is it allowed by right or allowed by special use? Allowed by right means you have the full right to develop for that use without further permission as long as you meet other requirements such as setbacks and maximum lot coverage, which is the next things you check. Can you put the house on the site and meet all the setbacks and maximum lot coverage requirements. Keep in mind new requirements could be more restrictive and if you are building in an old neighborhood, there are maybe less restrictive requirements grandfather in. This is all knowledge and experience you either pay other people for or figure it out yourself. 

2. Utilities. Do you have all the utilities available to you? If not, what's the cost to bring them in? sometimes it become cost prohibitive if utilities are not readily available. 

3. Pave road access. Easy yes or no. Most time in our area if there is no pave road access is 99% a deal breaker. 

4. Environmental: Wetland, flood zone, elevation, geotechnical, coastal construction control line, turtle and eagle's nest etc. are the things to do research on in our area. 

If everything checks the box then it's a pretty easy go. Our county has a confirmation letter allow the applicant to pay $116 for the county to issue a letter to confirm that you can do the thing you would like to do before you start. 

If somethings don't check out, then there are array of things you can do to mitigate those things. Often times they all become cost prohibitive unless you have either an amazing land deal, or you do a larger community development with lots of units where that cost is spread throughout the project.