Land development and feasibility:what the ground will actually allow.

Every tract carries two numbers: what it is today, and what it could hold if somebody spent the money and got the approvals. Land development feasibility is the work of finding out whether that second number is real.

The rules below run in the order a project meets them: the division, the entrance and the road, the soil, the earth moving, the arithmetic they leave behind, and how the ground is taxed. Virginia writes nearly all of it down and names the office that administers each piece. The method behind the read is on the five things we read before we price land.

A tract with no permitted entrance is a tract with no lots.

VDOT district administrators or their designees issue entrance permits, and the application goes to the designee for the county where the work will be performed (24VAC30-73-20 and 24VAC30-73-40). For a private entrance the owner obtains the permit and, on shoulder and ditch section roads, installs it to VDOT's policies and engineering standards; the designee may require the owner to grade slopes, clear brush, remove trees or make other similar efforts "necessary to provide the safest possible means of ingress and egress that can be reasonably achieved", and where the minimum intersection sight distance standards in the permit terms cannot be met, the entrance should be placed at the location with the best possible sight distance (24VAC30-73-90). VDOT's Road Design Manual adds that a private entrance "cannot be denied on the basis of sight distance". Carroll County is served by the Martinsville Residency in Bassett, in the Salem District, and the six counties do not share one residency: see the six Southwest Virginia counties we work.

A road the state will maintain has a threshold

The Secondary Street Acceptance Requirements decide whether VDOT takes a new subdivision street. Acceptance turns on "sufficient public benefit", which the regulation defines as meeting "the public service, pedestrian accommodation, and connectivity requirements" (24VAC30-92-60). Serving "three or more occupied units" is one of several ways a street can show public service, alongside connecting segments, stub outs, access to schools, churches and similar public facilities, and certain streets carrying at least 100 vehicles a day; where the governing body asks for acceptance before those provisions are met, the district administrator reviews the request case by case, provided the street meets every other requirement, including connectivity. A street that is to stay private must be noted on the plat and affected deeds: future acceptance means improving it "at no cost to the department" (24VAC30-92-20). A stricter local ordinance that is not in conflict becomes VDOT's requirement there (24VAC30-92-30).

Grading a road and a set of pads is a regulated land-disturbing activity long before it is a subdivision.

The general statewide threshold is 10,000 square feet. The 2,500 square foot figure applies only inside an area a locality has designated as a Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area, and both provisions let a locality reduce the threshold further (9VAC25-875-70 and 9VAC25-875-250). An acre or more brings the full water quantity and quality criteria.

Land-disturbing activity that disturbs 10,000 square feet or more, although the locality may reduce this regulatory threshold to a smaller area of disturbed land

9VAC25-875-250

Which program applies depends on the locality (Va. Code 62.1-44.15:27). In a locality that runs a VESMP, Va. Code 62.1-44.15:34 bars a regulated land-disturbing activity until the VESMP authority has the application, with the plan or an executed agreement in lieu of a plan where one is required, and has issued its land-disturbance approval, subject to that section's thresholds and exemptions. Carroll County is a VESCP authority instead: the county approves the erosion and sediment control plan under Va. Code 62.1-44.15:55, may allow an agreement in lieu of a plan for a single-family residence, and says stormwater management in Carroll County is administered and enforced by DEQ. Confirm the threshold and the program with the county before grading is priced.

Much of the ground worth developing here is assessed on its use value, not its market value. Changing the use has a bill attached.

Va. Code 58.1-3230 establishes the classifications: agricultural, horticultural, forest and open-space use. Use value assessment reaches a parcel where the locality has adopted a land-use plan and an ordinance for it, and also reaches land "used in agricultural and forestal production within" an agricultural, forestal, or agricultural and forestal district established under Chapter 43 of Title 15.2, whether or not a local plan or ordinance has been adopted (Va. Code 58.1-3231). The statutory minimums are five acres agricultural or horticultural, twenty forest, and five open space "or such greater minimum acreage as may be prescribed by local ordinance", counted across contiguous ground in the same ownership (Va. Code 58.1-3233). A governing body may also, by ordinance, set less than five acres for agricultural purposes, aquaculture, or specialty crops as defined by local ordinance, and one quarter of an acre for open space in the circumstances the same section lists.

Under Va. Code 58.1-3237 the roll-back attaches when the qualifying use changes to a nonqualifying use or, except as a local ordinance under subsection G provides, when the zoning is changed to a more intensive use "at the request of the owner or his agent". In a locality without a sliding scale ordinance it equals the deferred tax for "the five most recent complete tax years" plus simple interest at a rate the governing body sets, "no greater than the rate applicable to delinquent taxes in such locality", and the current year's taxes are also extended on the basis of fair market value. A change of ownership does not attach it "if the new owner does not rezone the real estate to a more intensive use", unless a subsection G ordinance provides otherwise, and continues the real estate in its classified use "under the conditions prescribed in this article and in the ordinance". The owner reports the change to the commissioner of the revenue within sixty days, and that is the office to ask about a parcel's classification; a tax question about a transaction belongs with the owner's accountant or attorney.

Three things this office does on a development tract, and three it does not.

So what you get here is a read, not an approval. Sometimes the honest answer is that the ground will not carry the plan, and that answer is cheaper now than after a due diligence period.