Entitlements & City Council Approval

I can write a long ass response to this later, but first thing you should do in pour into the city/county website and do as much research on code, procedure, fees, etc. as you can. Learn the council members, your council member, the city/county manager, and the planner’s info too. You will need them. This is a political and legal process so you have to approach it like that. Do your research, make friends, kiss babies, and hope that a bunch of 75 year olds don’t make custom T shirts saying you’re killing them. (Yes this happened to me. No they wouldn’t give me one.) 

Edit: No need to now. Tons of good stuff below. Probably one of the most informative thread I've seen here in a long time. Well done, WSO RE. 

Thanks! Have been starting to research/compile a list of key players - next step in my head is to meet them and talk through the vision/how it will benefit their communities. 

Looking forward to the long ass response man. Definitely learning more about how important the political/legal process plays into this. 

The T-Shirt shituation must be quite a story. Have a mentor here in NYC that had a mob protest out his office once...that's when you know you're value-adding (via legal removal of rent stabilized units) right lol. 

There is no books on this that I am aware of. What you need is solid legal help from an attorney that has successfully permitted projects in your desired location. Once you have that your goal should be to get the highest person on the city council and/or county board of commissioners you can to be invested (emotionally or otherwise) in your project. Much like getting a bank loan, you want the person with the most decision making power the one to be advocating for you.

It is my experience that anytime these bureaucrats get into a room together to debate a variance or anything slightly outside the box, the answer is always no. You really need either a bullet proof legal case or someone on the inside driving you through. 

Thank you both for the insight. Some bolt-on questions:

(1) How many acres is the typical "I'm going to entitle land to development single family homes business plan"?

(2) What does that process look like from start to finish? Frankly not seeing anything remotely conclusive online, lot of BS. 

For context, looking to do this in tertiary markets given the shortage in single family home construction. 

This post gives me so much anxiety I can't respond. 

Beyond what's already been posted, find a few land planners and civil engineers that you can sit down and talk with. Whoever seems to have the best pulse on what's happening in the city, or is submitting the most applications, etc., will likely be the best resource as you push forward on a specific site. Depending on what it is you're trying to do, a lobbying/PR firm can become very useful. 

I had an 18 month re-zoning in Nashville that required 6 lobbyists on the payroll before we finally got it over the finish line. T-shirts, stickers, getting my cell phone # blasted out across the city, etc. It was a fun one. Most importantly, beyond us getting it done, was that I learned a TON from going through a miserable process and will be able to pull from that for the rest of my career.

Developing or re-developing property is basically a government job when you get down to it. You're just hiring consultants to submit your directives, that ultimately get built. Understanding what's occurring in the city (from a governmental level, neighborhood level, business level) all impacts your development, even indirectly, and is invaluable to understand what you're going into.

Land use attorney here, based in California. Certainly, the multimillion-dollar question. 

I can't speak to other states, but here in CA there is no simple guide to annexations, rezonings, general plan amendments as they are discretionary legislative actions by the city councils and each project will have its own set of unique issues. Discretionary is the key word here as the decision maker (city council) can approve or disprove the project how they see fit. Very site specific as well, are you trying to annex land outside city limits but in the sphere of influence into the city? Are you rezoning land within the city limits? This will dictate the legal roadmap of what you need to do on paper. A land use lawyer familiar with the specific municipality can quickly help understand this aspect.

You also need to understand the structure of the municipality you are working in. Most cities are charter cities where the elected city council oversees city staff run by the city manager. You will need to appease both groups.

City staff's primary concerns are going to be providing adequate services (i.e. sewer, water, power, police, schools, fire, extra). Before even attempting to put the item up for a vote it is crucial to get a favorable staff report. This can be done by meeting with the planning department and going over your project in a pre-application meeting and informal review ahead of a formal submittal. There may be some issues city staff wants that you can push back on, but overall, you want staff in your corner. 

The respective city council will be concerned about being re-elected and be receptive to the public input by local voting residents. Usually, the only people who voice their opinion are NIMBY groups who don't want change. Unfortunately, this phase is the black box and why many institutions do not support entitlement projects because it is a political process, not a modeling exercise. Securing the votes or at least having soft commitments from the council members ahead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on engineering, architectural, legal, land costs can derisk the process, but it takes time and requires genuine relationship building. In most cases, you will need a simple majority vote in favor of your project to get the entitlements you seek at the planning commission and city council. 

Residential projects tend to be a net loss for cities at least in CA given prop 13's property tax limit, as they end up taking more resources than the added property tax base adds in. Unless the developer is providing lower income or moderate-income housing, which CA cities are now mandated to provide via there RHNA numbers (reginal housing needs allocation), it's a bit of an uphill battle. However, providing the needed lower income housing blows up the proforma and will generate significant NIMBY pushback.

The path of least resistance is to focus on areas that have been preplanned or identified as suitable residential sites, via either the City's general plan or relevant specific plans.  Of course, those areas will have less of an arbitrage opportunity from land cost perspective.

In terms of resources, there are several excellent secondary sources that provide a guide on land use policies and process, including Barclay & Gray’s California Land Use and Planning Law as well as the League of California Cities California Municipal Law Handbook.