5 ms·

I personally tried to build more housing, I tried to buy 5 acres and build 5 homes on them. 5 acres could have easily held 5 large homes with big yards. The ci

by Dig1t 2y ago

I personally tried to build more housing, I tried to buy 5 acres and build 5 homes on them. 5 acres could have easily held 5 large homes with big yards. The city zoning board denied me, saying that that 5-acre plot had been zoned for ONE house and an ADU of no larger than 300 sqft. That was when I realized why housing is so expensive.

WaxProlix 2y ago
I've looked at something similar. The path is to split the plot first via your county (or whatever) and then build.
- Dig1t 2y ago
  Correct, but the zoning board people outright told me they would deny the request to split the lot because it had already been zoned as “single family”.
  - WaxProlix 2y ago
    Strange, and frustrating sounding - 1a each is plenty to leave the resulting plots as conformant single family housing.
    - toast0 2y ago
      Where I'm at, our least dense zone is 1 unit per 2.5 acres. If the lot was almost, but not quite 5 acres, it couldn't be split without a variance. In theory, the state requires the city to allow for 2x population growth, and the zoning process directs where the growth should happen. In practice, the city pushes back so hard on everything, that the growth is going to happen wherever whoever has patience and money to spend on fighting the council wants to build. Everyone else is going to be frustrated by the long process of back and forth on pulling permits over many years and many dollars that actually the city won't let you do whatever you wanted to do anyway.
boplicity 2y ago
In this case, it may not have just been that 5 acres was enough "room" for five houses. It gets into questions of building infrastructure for those houses -- sewers, water rights, etc. One development of 5 houses might not move the needle on that, but it then opens the door to neighbors doing the same thing, which could very much require major investment in infrastructure for the area.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > One development of 5 houses might not move the needle on that, but it then opens the door to neighbors doing the same thing, which could very much require major investment in infrastructure for the area. But then there is a corresponding increase in property tax revenues to pay for it, so this should require no approval and just be something that happens. The city pays for the new infrastructure from the taxes paid by the new people using it.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    So the city has to build a new $50 million dollar sewage treatment plant in the hopes of getting that paid back over 50 years of property taxes, and gets no say in the matter or the cities budget? Sewage treatment plants have finite capacity, can't be built on a 'serves 20 units' incremental scale, and oftentimes new plants have much stricter requirements than grandfathered in one. Not everywhere is the bay area where they can scale up by just piping it out a few miles into the ocean and call it good.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > So the city has to build a new $50 million dollar sewage treatment plant in the hopes of getting that paid back over 50 years of property taxes, and gets no say in the matter or the cities budget? Precisely. > Sewage treatment plants have finite capacity, can't be built on a 'serves 20 units' incremental scale Nor would they need to be. If your sewage treatment plant has a capacity for 100,000 units and you have 99,981 existing units, you already need a new sewage treatment plant regardless of where you put the new units, unless your plan is to never approve any new construction anywhere in the city, which is manifestly unreasonable. > and oftentimes new plants have much stricter requirements than grandfathered in one. And whose doing is that?
cdchn 2y ago
Yeah usually they want you to build one house on one plot. Not build a compound. If you want to build 5 houses, you subdivide.
- mikestew 2y ago
  I'm not a real estate developer, and even I assumed OP was subdividing (and mentions that in another comment). Why would you assume otherwise? I also assumed that the zoning authority said, "nope, minimum 5 acre lot size", which is common. There is, after all, the possibility that someone actually knows what they're doing when they go before the zoning board.
  - cdchn 2y ago
    Where he says "that 5-acre plot had been zoned for ONE house"
maxsilver 2y ago
Where are you? Generally you can petition for re-zoning, as long as your lot is urban enough to have proper power/water/sewer infrastructure, and meets the hypothetically split requirements. (They allow it maybe ~90% of the time here in Michigan)

by Dig1t 2y ago

WaxProlix 2y ago

I've looked at something similar. The path is to split the plot first via your county (or whatever) and then build.

Dig1t 2y ago
Correct, but the zoning board people outright told me they would deny the request to split the lot because it had already been zoned as “single family”.
- WaxProlix 2y ago
  Strange, and frustrating sounding - 1a each is plenty to leave the resulting plots as conformant single family housing.
  - toast0 2y ago
    Where I'm at, our least dense zone is 1 unit per 2.5 acres. If the lot was almost, but not quite 5 acres, it couldn't be split without a variance. In theory, the state requires the city to allow for 2x population growth, and the zoning process directs where the growth should happen. In practice, the city pushes back so hard on everything, that the growth is going to happen wherever whoever has patience and money to spend on fighting the council wants to build. Everyone else is going to be frustrated by the long process of back and forth on pulling permits over many years and many dollars that actually the city won't let you do whatever you wanted to do anyway.

boplicity 2y ago

In this case, it may not have just been that 5 acres was enough "room" for five houses. It gets into questions of building infrastructure for those houses -- sewers, water rights, etc. One development of 5 houses might not move the needle on that, but it then opens the door to neighbors doing the same thing, which could very much require major investment in infrastructure for the area.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> One development of 5 houses might not move the needle on that, but it then opens the door to neighbors doing the same thing, which could very much require major investment in infrastructure for the area. But then there is a corresponding increase in property tax revenues to pay for it, so this should require no approval and just be something that happens. The city pays for the new infrastructure from the taxes paid by the new people using it.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  So the city has to build a new $50 million dollar sewage treatment plant in the hopes of getting that paid back over 50 years of property taxes, and gets no say in the matter or the cities budget? Sewage treatment plants have finite capacity, can't be built on a 'serves 20 units' incremental scale, and oftentimes new plants have much stricter requirements than grandfathered in one. Not everywhere is the bay area where they can scale up by just piping it out a few miles into the ocean and call it good.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > So the city has to build a new $50 million dollar sewage treatment plant in the hopes of getting that paid back over 50 years of property taxes, and gets no say in the matter or the cities budget? Precisely. > Sewage treatment plants have finite capacity, can't be built on a 'serves 20 units' incremental scale Nor would they need to be. If your sewage treatment plant has a capacity for 100,000 units and you have 99,981 existing units, you already need a new sewage treatment plant regardless of where you put the new units, unless your plan is to never approve any new construction anywhere in the city, which is manifestly unreasonable. > and oftentimes new plants have much stricter requirements than grandfathered in one. And whose doing is that?

cdchn 2y ago

Yeah usually they want you to build one house on one plot. Not build a compound. If you want to build 5 houses, you subdivide.

mikestew 2y ago
I'm not a real estate developer, and even I assumed OP was subdividing (and mentions that in another comment). Why would you assume otherwise? I also assumed that the zoning authority said, "nope, minimum 5 acre lot size", which is common. There is, after all, the possibility that someone actually knows what they're doing when they go before the zoning board.
- cdchn 2y ago
  Where he says "that 5-acre plot had been zoned for ONE house"

maxsilver 2y ago

Where are you? Generally you can petition for re-zoning, as long as your lot is urban enough to have proper power/water/sewer infrastructure, and meets the hypothetically split requirements. (They allow it maybe ~90% of the time here in Michigan)