Can it happen?
What will it cost?

Two questions decide whether a piece of land is a deal or a mistake. Most firms answer one. We answer both, before you commit.

Entitlement and development services for land that has not been approved yet, or has been approved and is not moving.

The three answers you need sit with three people who never talk to each other.

A parcel comes up. You have a diligence window and a deposit that goes hard on a date. You need to know three things: whether the town will approve what you want to build, how long that takes, and what it costs to build once it is approved.

The attorney knows the first. The engineer knows part of the second. Somebody you have not hired yet knows the third. None of them are looking at your pro forma, and the clock is the only thing in the deal that does not stop.

The first gap

Parcel data tells you what you can build. It does not tell you what the town will let you build.

Zoning says the use is permitted. The comprehensive plan encourages it. Staff recommends approval. And then the board votes it down, or approves it with conditions that take a third of the yield out of your program.

None of that is in the ordinance. It is in the record.

The second gap

Approval is not the finish line. It is the start of the most expensive stretch of the deal.

Conditions somebody negotiated 18 months earlier land on a delivery team that never saw them, and surface at plat review, the most expensive place in the process to find anything.

Active management runs about 14 months. Closeout does not arrive until past month 36.

Where the two gaps sit

Diligence
Entitlement
Active development
Closeout
Approval
9 to 18 months About 14 months To month 36 and beyond
Gap one

Will the town allow it? The answer sits in a public record almost nobody has time to read.

Gap two

Conditions cross to a delivery team that never saw them, and your capital stays in the ground until the bonds release.

The record

We read the record. All of it.

Every council meeting and planning board hearing across hundreds of jurisdictions. Every motion, who moved it, who seconded, who voted no. What got said before the vote, and by whom.

It does not predict anything, and we will not tell you it does. What it shows you is what that board has approved, what it turned down first, and exactly what changed in between. That difference is the price of the approval, and it is not written in any ordinance.

Tell us the parcel. We will tell you what the record holds, and if it is thin we will say so.

From the record
Huntersville, NC
Petition R25-15, mixed-use rezoning
PlanSite sits inside a Mixed Use Center on the town’s own future land use map
StaffStill could not recommend approval
BoardPlanning Board recommends denial
Vote9 to 0
FindingToo little commercial, too many apartments
Three weeks later
ChangedOne apartment building became townhomes. Ground-floor commercial went from about 8,000 square feet to about 11,500.
ResultApproved
Vote5 to 1
Nobody’s zoning map told you that was the price. The meeting record did.

Two service lines. One accountable team.

Can it happen?

Entitlement Services

Pre-acquisition due diligence, so you know what a parcel can become before you close on it. Then the approvals themselves: rezonings, text and map amendments, site plan approval, variances, special use permits, subdivision and plats, and the hearings that come with them.

What will it cost?

Development Services

Estimating early enough that the number can still change the decision. Value engineering so the project pencils. Land review. And development management that holds the schedule, manages the budget and the subs, and owns the closeout, so your money comes back when you planned for it.

Most firms do one. We do both, which is why we can tell you in one conversation whether a deal is real.

We manage development. We do not develop and we do not buy land. Nobody here is sitting on the other side of your table.

Two ways to start.

$1,000, two days

QuickCheck

Go / No-Go summary
Water and sewer3
Environmental1
Zoning2
Land use plan2
Transportation2
Conditional go2

One parcel, read against the record, the code and the dirt. Nine sections, each risk scored, with a go or no-go at the end.

No charge, 15 minutes

A parcel call

What we need from you
01Parcel number or address. A rough location works if that is all you have.
02What you want to build. “About 120 single-family lots” is plenty.
03Where you are with it. Looking, under contract, closed, or approved and stuck.
04Your name and email. That is the whole form.

We will come to the call having already read what that board has approved nearby. That is what makes fifteen minutes worth giving up.

If we are not the right people for it, we will tell you on the call.

When you do not need us.

If the project is already permitted, you do not need us. If it is small enough that your own team can carry it, you are fine handling it in-house. We will say so on the first call, and we would rather say it than take the engagement.

The rest of the time: we are YES. If it is in our wheelhouse, we will figure out how to make it work.

Before you commit

What you will know.

  • What that board has approved on the parcels nearest yours, and what conditions came with it.
  • Which parts of your program are by right, and which need a room full of people to say yes.
  • What it costs to build, early enough that the number can still change your mind.
  • When your money comes back, and who is accountable for the date.

Start here

Bring us your hardest parcel.