Feasibility Before You Buy: A 10-Point Site Screen
Short answer
Before buying a site, screen its zoning, buildable area, access, utilities, flood and drainage conditions, wetlands, soils, tree restrictions and required approvals. The findings should show whether the intended use is practical and identify unresolved risks that need to be addressed during due diligence.
Good development discipline is mostly about killing bad sites quickly and cheaply. The screen below takes a few hours per parcel, costs almost nothing, and routinely saves five figures in wasted diligence.
Run it before you spend money on consultants. Anything that fails badly at this stage does not deserve a geotechnical report.
1. Zoning and use
What does the current zoning permit by right? If your intended use requires a rezoning, special exception, or variance, you are buying a political process with an uncertain outcome and a hearing calendar. That is not disqualifying, but it must be priced in time and risk.
2. Yield
Sketch the actual unit count or building footprint the site can hold after setbacks, buffers, parking, and stormwater. Compare it to the yield your pro forma assumes. Most bad deals fail right here.
3. Utilities
Where is the nearest water and sewer with available capacity, who owns it, and what does it cost to reach? Gravity versus pumped sewer is a major cost fork. Confirm capacity, not just proximity — an adjacent main with no allocation is not service.
4. Access
Is there legal, physical, and permittable access? Check for encroachment permit requirements on state roads, sight distance, turn lane triggers, and shared or prescriptive easements. Access problems are often unsolvable at any price.
5. Environmental constraints
Look for wetlands, critical area, flood zone, protected trees, and any prior industrial use. Aerial history and public mapping will flag most of it in an hour. Anything flagged becomes a diligence item with cost and schedule attached.
6. Topography and soils
Steep grades, low pads, and poor soils translate directly into earthwork and foundation cost. Regional soil survey data is free and directional; borings come later, but they should confirm what you already suspect, not surprise you.
7. Stormwater
Where does water leave the site today, and where can it legally go after you build? Downstream capacity, outfall rights, and detention area are frequently the constraint that reduces yield.
8. Fee load
Total the impact, tap, plan review, and permit fees on a per-unit or per-square-foot basis. Fee load varies significantly between jurisdictions and can decide between two otherwise identical sites.
9. Schedule to approval
Count the hearings. Count the agencies. Multiply by your monthly carrying cost. A site that takes twice as long to entitle is a materially more expensive site even at the same price.
10. Exit
Who buys or leases this when it is finished, at what price, and what comparable evidence supports that? If the exit only works at the top of the market, the site is a bet, not a project.
Scoring the screen
Score each item pass, caution, or fail. Then apply three rules:
- Any fail on access or utilities ends the evaluation.
- Three or more cautions means the deal only works at a discounted basis — go get one.
- All passes means spend the diligence money and go deep.
What this screen is not
It is not a substitute for surveys, delineations, borings, or engineering. It is a filter that decides where those dollars go. The goal is to reach a confident no in hours rather than an expensive maybe in months.
The takeaway
Sites are eliminated cheaply or expensively. A standardized ten-point screen makes elimination cheap, keeps your diligence budget pointed at the parcels that can actually work, and gives you a defensible reason for every decision — including the ones where you walked away.
The 10-Point Site Screen
Before buying, review zoning and allowed use; setbacks and buildable area; access and frontage; water and sewer availability; drainage and flood conditions; wetlands and other environmental constraints; soils and likely foundation needs; utility service; tree and site-clearing restrictions; and the approvals required to build.
The screen should produce a simple record for each item: the source checked, what is known, what remains uncertain and who can resolve it. A parcel can look workable on a map while losing usable area to overlapping setbacks, easements, wetlands or access requirements.
Turn the Screen Into a Purchase Decision
Classify each issue as confirmed, unresolved or disqualifying. Confirmed items should be supported by current maps, written agency information, recorded documents or consultant findings rather than a seller's description alone.
Use unresolved items to shape the due-diligence period and contract contingencies. If a material question cannot be answered before those protections expire, the owner should decide whether to extend, renegotiate or walk away rather than carry the uncertainty into design and construction.
Verify the Screen With the Right Sources
Start with the jurisdiction that controls land use. Confirm the parcel's zoning, allowed use, dimensional standards, overlay districts and likely approval path with county or municipal staff. Then compare those requirements with the survey, deed, recorded easements and any available plat.
Utility providers can confirm whether service is present, but the answer should address capacity, connection location and any required extension. Flood maps, wetland mapping and soil information are useful screening tools, not substitutes for field verification when the site shows signs of constraint.
A surveyor, civil engineer, geotechnical engineer, environmental consultant or land-use attorney may be needed to close specific gaps. The purpose is not to order every study for every parcel. It is to match each material risk with the professional or agency able to answer it.
Estimate Cost and Schedule Exposure
Feasibility is not limited to whether construction is legally possible. Access work, utility extensions, stormwater controls, fill, retaining systems, unusual foundations, tree protection and off-site improvements can change the practical cost of developing a parcel.
The approval path can also affect timing. A project requiring variances, subdivision, wetland authorization or coordination among several agencies carries more schedule uncertainty than one that fits established standards.
Before closing, separate ordinary project costs from site-driven costs and unresolved allowances. That comparison helps an owner judge the land price alongside the work required to make the site usable.
Start With the Intended Use
A site is only feasible in relation to a defined project. State the intended use, approximate building footprint, parking needs, access requirements and any subdivision or association constraints before reviewing the parcel.
Without that baseline, a general answer that the property is buildable may have little value. A parcel may support one house or a smaller program while failing to support the buyer's intended layout.
Check Zoning, Setbacks and Buildable Area
Confirm the governing jurisdiction, zoning district, permitted use, setbacks, height limits, lot coverage and applicable overlays. Do not assume nearby development establishes what the parcel may support today.
Plot those controls with easements, buffers and other restrictions on a current survey. The remaining buildable area should accommodate the proposed structure, access, parking, drainage and construction activity, not merely a conceptual footprint.
1. Confirm the Jurisdiction and Approval Path
Identify every public body with authority over the parcel before evaluating the design. In the Lowcountry, that may include a municipality or county, a design review board, a historic district, stormwater reviewers, utility providers, and state or federal agencies with wetland or coastal jurisdiction. Do not assume the mailing address tells you which rules apply.
Request the current zoning designation, future land-use designation, overlay districts, permitted uses, dimensional standards, parking requirements, tree protections, and known approval procedures. Then list each required entitlement or permit in sequence, including public hearings, board reviews, and outside-agency signoffs. The key question is not only whether the proposed use is allowed, but whether the owner can accept the time, conditions, and uncertainty attached to approval.
2. Map the Site's Actual Buildable Area
Start with a current boundary and topographic survey, then layer in wetlands, critical area lines, flood zones, required buffers, easements, rights-of-way, setbacks, protected trees, drainage features, and any recorded restrictions. Verify whether the parcel has legal access and whether that access meets the applicable fire, emergency, and transportation standards.
Use those constraints to draw a preliminary buildable envelope rather than relying on gross acreage. Test the envelope against the proposed building footprint, parking, stormwater facilities, utilities, service access, grading, and construction staging. A concept that fits only by using uncertain wetland impacts, variances, or neighboring property should be treated as conditional, not feasible.
3. Verify Utilities, Drainage, and Road Access
Obtain written availability information for water, sewer, power, gas, and communications where relevant. Confirm connection points, capacity, required extensions, easements, tap or impact fees, and whether off-site improvements are likely. If public sewer is unavailable, evaluate septic suitability and reserve area early; if a well is contemplated, confirm applicable health and permitting requirements.
Review how the property drains today and where post-construction runoff can legally discharge. Ask whether downstream capacity, detention, water-quality treatment, road improvements, turn lanes, or shared-access agreements may be required. Separate improvements serving the building from enabling work needed to make the site usable, because the latter can carry different approvals, design scopes, and construction sequencing.
4. Price the Unknowns Before the Due-Diligence Period Ends
Organize findings into four categories: confirmed conditions, items requiring further study, approvals dependent on discretion, and fatal constraints. Build a preliminary development budget that includes land, design and consulting, permitting, sitework, utility extensions, off-site improvements, mitigation, financing carry, and owner contingency. Use ranges where scope is unresolved rather than forcing a single number.
Tie each unresolved item to an action, responsible party, cost allowance, and decision date. The purchase agreement should provide enough access and time for surveys, environmental review, geotechnical work, utility coordination, concept planning, and agency discussions. Before the contingency period expires, decide whether to proceed as written, renegotiate price or terms, extend diligence, or terminate based on documented thresholds established in advance.
Common questions
- Is an online parcel map enough for a feasibility screen?
- No. Online maps are useful for initial review, but boundaries, easements, elevations, wetlands and utility conditions may require records, agency confirmation or field work. Material decisions should rely on current, project-specific information.
- When should I bring in a surveyor or engineer?
- Bring them in when boundaries, access, drainage, elevations, soils or buildable area could affect the purchase decision. Their scope should address the specific uncertainty identified by the initial screen.
- What should a feasibility summary include?
- It should list the intended use, each issue reviewed, the information source, the current finding and any unresolved item. It should also identify the next action, responsible party and relevant due-diligence deadline.