Anyone know of a rule of thumb residential land developers use to approximate how much of a property will need to be allocated to roadways, sidewalks, water retention areas, etc?
For example, if a developer is looking to buy 100 acres to build a new subdivision, how much of that land would they back out as being used for public/community infrastructure? Only worked on one residential project so far, so curious to hear from more experienced folks.
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I used to do work in Florida, land of the subdivision, I can say that rules of thumb for this stuff in FL are virtually impossible. Water retention (and the concept of wetlands), made the first question be... How much is buildable (dry) and how much is wet (and where).. from there you could plot the rest using the applicable zoning code/future land use. Zoning/FLU could vary a lot for each city/county and a lot within county. it was really those minimum lot sizes, setbacks, and public space requirements that set the yield, far more than the physical space needed for roads/sidewalks.
I'm sure you could rule of thumb for a given city/zoning code, but until you knew buildable, it was guessing game.
Fair enough. Florida, NYC and Houston all likely have much different zoning laws/ordinances/etc that affect the amount of land that can be developed, based on site-specific conditions. Thanks for the response!
LOL... zoning laws in Houston...
It’s crazy! They just get to build whatever they want down there!!
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