What is a feasibility study?
A feasibility study is an investigation of whether a site can support a proposed use before money is committed to it. No Virginia statute defines one, so its written scope does. Evaluating or designing improvements to land, or fixing boundaries and contours, is licensed engineering or surveying work unless an exemption applies, and a county soil survey only starts the work.
No Virginia statute defines one, so the written scope does
Look for feasibility study in the Code of Virginia and you will not find a definition. The term is a general one, and what a given study covers is set by the engagement that orders it.
In plain terms, a feasibility study asks whether a particular piece of ground can carry a particular plan, and what it would take to get there, before someone buys the land, closes on it or starts spending on design. The plan might be one house, a handful of lots or a commercial pad. Because no statute fixes the contents, two documents both called feasibility studies can answer very different questions. One may be a short memo on access and septic; another may carry a boundary and topographic survey, soil work and a preliminary layout.
That makes the scope letter the page to read first. It says which questions are asked, which professional answers each one, what the deliverable is and when it is due. A reader who has only the conclusion, and not the scope, cannot tell what was never looked at.
The approvals a use ultimately depends on are a related but separate idea, covered under what entitlements are. How Virginia's subdivision, entrance, soil and grading rules bear on a development tract, from the plat to the grading, is set out on land development and feasibility.
Evaluating or designing improvements to land is licensed work
Whatever the scope says, Virginia's licensing law decides who may do certain parts of it. Outside the exemptions the statute provides, the rule is plain.
a person shall hold a valid license prior to engaging in the practice of architecture or engineering which includes design, consultation, evaluation, or analysis and involves proposed or existing improvements to real property.
Va. Code 54.1-406
Va. Code 54.1-400 defines the practice of engineering to include consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning and design of public or private utilities and structures. A study that evaluates or designs a road, a water line, a septic system or a building pad for a tract is doing the kind of work those definitions describe, so that part goes to a licensed professional, such as a professional engineer, unless an exemption applies; a residential septic design by a licensed onsite soil evaluator is one such exemption. Whether a specific house or site needs an engineer's sealed work is taken up under when you need an engineer to build on land.
The same section defines land surveying to include establishing land boundaries, determining topography and contours, and planning land and subdivisions, including incidental plans and profiles for roads, grading, surface drainage, culverts and erosion control measures. The boundary survey and the contours a study rests on are therefore a land surveyor's work. Early sketches are more open: Va. Code 15.2-2262 requires a certified professional engineer or land surveyor for a subdivision plat intended for recording, but says nothing prohibits preliminary studies, plans or plats by the owner, land planners, architects, landscape architects or others with subdivision training or experience.
A soil survey and aerial contours start the work without finishing it
A study can open at a desk, with maps anyone can pull. Those maps are useful and they have limits written into their own descriptions.
The county soil survey. A county soil survey, in the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation's description, is a scientific inventory whose details, such as wetness and depth to bedrock, are there to help judge, for example, whether a septic tank absorption field can be safely installed. The Natural Resources Conservation Service, which serves that data on Web Soil Survey, adds its own limit: onsite investigation is needed in some cases, including certain engineering applications.
The septic question. A map rating does not settle whether a lot takes a septic system. Virginia's soil evaluation looks at physiographic province, topography, available area, degree of slope and the soil profile, and a perc test, where one is required, is analyzed as only one of many criteria. That evaluation happens on the ground, through the local health department.
Aerial contours. Contours that people not licensed as land surveyors take from aerial or other remote-sensing data are, under Va. Code 54.1-402, for general information only, so they can shape the first questions but cannot carry a layout. How far that screening gets on a real tract, and what comes off the gross acreage, is under how much of a tract is actually buildable.
Questions a written scope can name, matched to the person who answers each
Laying a scope out as a table is the simplest way to see that no single person answers every line.
| Question | Who answers it | Where the rule or record sits |
|---|---|---|
| Where exactly are the boundaries, and what does the ground's shape look like? | A land surveyor | Va. Code 54.1-400, the practice of land surveying |
| Will a road, utility or structure work on this ground, and how would it be designed? | A licensed professional engineer, unless an exemption applies | Va. Code 54.1-400, 54.1-402 and 54.1-406 |
| Will the soil take a septic system on each proposed lot? | The local health department, which takes the permit request and may accept a licensed onsite soil evaluator's or engineer's certified evaluation | 12VAC5-610-450, soil evaluations; Va. Code 32.1-165 |
| What do the published soils suggest before anyone digs? | Anyone, as a screen | County soil survey; Web Soil Survey |
| Will the building office want a site plan with the permit application? | The local building official | USBC Section 109.2, when determined necessary |
| Does the property's environmental history raise questions for a commercial buyer? | Its own subject, linked below | The Phase 1 answer |
The environmental line is its own subject, answered under whether you need a Phase 1 environmental study to sell commercial land.
When the study runs: inside the window a purchase contract leaves open
A feasibility study is only useful while a decision is still open. For a buyer, that open window is often one the purchase contract creates.
A due diligence period is the stretch of time the contract gives a buyer to investigate, and a contingency is the clause that says what happens if an investigation comes back badly. Whether a study's findings let a buyer end the contract, and by what date, is written in that contract and read by a Virginia real estate attorney, not by the study. How long those windows run is taken up under how long a due diligence period is.
The order of the questions matters as much as the list, and why one factor can cancel the ones after it is laid out in the order Bowman reads land in.
Have a feasibility question on a tract before you commit to it?
Send the tract and what you hope to put on it, and Lowell will share what the public record shows and which professional answers each open question. No cost, no obligation.
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We'll be in touch shortly with an honest read.
Questions this raises
Is Web Soil Survey enough to tell whether a tract will take a septic system?
No. Web Soil Survey publishes National Cooperative Soil Survey data, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service itself says onsite investigation is needed in some cases, including certain engineering applications. Virginia's soil evaluation for a septic system considers physiographic province, topography, available area, degree of slope and the soil profile on the ground, and a percolation test, where required, is only one of many criteria.
Does a feasibility study require a new boundary survey?
No statute says so, because no statute defines a feasibility study. Whether one is included is a matter of scope. What Virginia law does say is that establishing boundaries and determining topography and contours are part of the practice of land surveying, so a study that relies on either one rests on a land surveyor's work.
Where this page's facts come from
Every rule, office and figure above traces to one of these. Rules change; check the office before you act on one.
- Va. Code 54.1-406: license required, and the advertising rule in subsection C Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 54.1-400: definitions of engineering and land surveying practice Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 54.1-402: topography and contours for general information only Virginia General Assembly
- Va. Code 15.2-2262: subdivision plats and preliminary studies Virginia General Assembly
- 13VAC5-63-90: USBC Section 109.2, site plan when determined necessary Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development
- Va. Code 32.1-165: certified evaluations accepted by the Department of Health Virginia General Assembly
- 12VAC5-610-450: soil evaluations, and the percolation test as one of many criteria Virginia Department of Health
- Virginia soil surveys Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
- Web Soil Survey Natural Resources Conservation Service