Tom Kelly: Playing ball with City Hall

If you decide to enhance an outbuilding, build on a newly created lot or attempt a simple subdivision, you will be spending a lot of time at your local City Hall from the beginning of the subdivision process until the end of the building process. Therefore, it is crucial that you educate yourself on their processes and identify the most helpful players.

For the initial information gathering process you can do two things that are both equally illuminating. First, you can take a local developer to lunch. Bring a legal pad and ask a lot of questions.

Are there any new codes or changes coming along in the next year or two that would affect your project? Most importantly, which planner does the developer recommend using to guide you through the actual process?

Individual planners have reputations of being helpful, accommodating and great mentors in the process. Others have the reputation of being adversarial. The planner you use can save you thousands of dollars and months of time. Learn from someone else’s experience instead of recreating the wheel.

The second method of gathering information is to go to city council meetings and any other public planning meeting. The hearing examiner specifically addresses individual issues that need resolution. If you have limited time (as we all do) just attend a handful of hearing examiner meetings to determine what issues frequently come up and how the city resolves them. This gives you the benefit of foresight so that you can avoid the obvious land mines.

Once you have determined which city planner you want to steer you through the process, cultivate that person like a delicate flower. While most city employees cannot accept gifts or special favors, go out of your way to let them know how much you appreciate their time and expertise. Stated appreciation for city employees always is lacking and a few kind words at City Hall – especially in the presence of other workers and consumers – never hurts.

A handwritten personal note every now and then, just a few short sentences, often paves the way to a fruitful relationship. You know you have the genuine appreciation of a city employee when you receive an unsolicited phone call offering information that has just surfaced that the employee knows would benefit your case. If you treat city employees as the crucial keys to your project, they could open many doors in their official capacity.

Zoning regulations govern the type of structure that can be built, the dimensions and even the material used on the exterior. If you want to subdivide, and then eventually build in a rural setting, check the availability of public utility services and the cost of bringing those services to the site. Local planning and zoning boards can provide information about proposed development that could change your quiet country lane into a busy street. Here are Top 10 zoning terms to assist you with a building-department language you may have never have spoken:

Zoning

The regulation of structures and uses of property within designated districts or zones. Zoning regulates and influences the use of land, building height and setback

Subdivision

Generally, the division of land, lot, tract or parcel into two or more lots, parcels, plats or sites, or other divisions of land for the purpose of sale, lease, offer, or development, whether immediate or future. The term shall also include the division of residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural or other land whether by deed, metes and bounds description, lease, map, plat or other instrument.

Short plat

In some states, small subdivisions usually divided into four or fewer lots. Number of lots could be extended to nine in some incorporated areas.

Variance

Permission obtained from governmental zoning authorities to build a structure or conduct a use that is expressly prohibited by current zoning laws; an exception to the zoning laws.

Cluster development

A development design technique that concentrates buildings in specific areas on a site to allow the remaining land to be used for recreation, common open space and preservation of environmentally sensitive areas.

Density

The ratio of land area to improvement area (structures). Typically stated as the number of units per acre.

Easement

The right of a person, government agency or public utility company to use public or private land owned by another for a specific purpose. A grant of one or more of the property rights by the owner to, or for the use by, the public, a corporation or another person or entity.

Setback

The required minimum horizontal distance between the building line and the related front, side or rear property line. The minimum horizontal distance between the lot or property line and the nearest front, side or rear line of the building (as the case may be), including terraces or any covered projection thereof, excluding steps.

Transfer of development rights

The conveyance of development rights by deed, easement or other legal instrument authorized by local law to another parcel of land and the recording of that conveyance.

Zero lot line

The location of a building on a lot in such a manner that one or more of the building’s sides rests directly on a lot line.