The biggest question on your mind when you’re about to buy land or just after you’ve purchased is: How much money can I make from this project? In most cases, you’ve purchased agricultural land and are looking to rezone that agricultural land to increase density. You might be looking to rezone to residential, commercial, or a mix of both. Here’s what you need to know to make the most of your land.

How Do I Start the Rezoning Process?

Once you’ve committed to the project but before the official rezoning process kicks off, you or your engineering team have to collect preplanning data in order to answer all the questions that you’ll be asked later. To define the basic scope of the project, you need to gather planning data.

• Rainwater and wastewater plans
• Environmental impact, showing the project’s impact on the land’s flora and fauna
• Geotech survey to know the soil content
• Land survey to delineate boundaries as well as show easements, cross-access agreement or any other limitations on the land
• Traffic report may be required if current traffic patterns will be significantly altered

If a land survey or environmental impact study has been completed already for your land, it will need to be updated. Otherwise, at this stage, you or your civil engineering firm is working with various contractors to gather only what data your specific project needs from the above list.

Determining Which Rules of Land Use Apply for Your Land

Every piece of land is part of a district. The delineation of districts is an overlay on top of on city maps. Every district has its own rules regarding setbacks, zoning and in general, what you can and cannot do. At this stage, you’ll need a development regional impact study, or DRI to ensure your development won’t negatively impact or overwhelm the existing infrastructure. Check out this set of rules as an example from Southeast Orlando. 

If your land is not currently part of a district, you get to make one–and decide what the rules are. Typically, most new districts choose to copy the regulations of the neighboring districts.

If you’re designing the district from scratch, you’re going to create a district that’s compatible with the neighbors. The only way you know if it’s compatible is to talk to the neighbors in a courtroom or other regulated space.

Orlando’s Vision 2050 Growth and Management Plan Refresh

At the time of writing, Orange County is developing the Vision 2050 Growth Management Plan Refresh detailing the newest rules for the districts. Once Orlando’s 2050 Growth and Management Plan Refresh document is completed, the plans won’t typically change again any time soon. However, developers aren’t limited to the land use zoning regulations spelled out in that document. There are ways to change future land use maps and rezoning regulations. It can require more work, but that’s where civil engineering firms can step in and help. By hiring a firm that’s familiar with this document, you save time and money ensuring that you are working to meet the most updated ordinance pertaining to your property.

What Happens at a Pre-Application Meeting?

After the civil engineering firm has gathered the land survey and other planning data for your property, next up is the pre-application meeting with the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ). Your engineering team shares their proposed plan, and explains how much density they think the project will receive in the various areas. They’ll also detail what will be built in each phase of development.

The AHJ you’re interacting with has many departments that your team will be speaking to:

• Water
• Sewage
• Traffic
• Stormwater

This review process occurs in two parts: the planning department and the zoning department. The zoning department is looking at the past and what zoning regulations have already been established. The planning department is considering future use, and can make adjustments to their future and land use maps (FLUMs), which differ from zoning maps. These FLUMs for Orlando need to match the city’s Vision 2050 plan.

Do I Need A Lawyer to Rezone my Property?

The most efficient use of lawyers is to bring them onboard once the proposed rezoning plan has been approved, which is typically toward the end of the rezoning process steps. After this round of public hearings have been completed, and you and your team understand what everybody needs, then the lawyer works to write these changes into law. If the result of the public hearings is that a specific buffer needs to be created between your project and existing development, then the lawyers write into law that both parties agree this buffer cannot be changed unless there is a different hearing to do so.

Initial Plan Review

After pre-application, the civil engineering firm submits the site plan, along with half of the construction plan. At this point, the grading work at your site is completed, and the utilities and stormwater systems have been completed halfway. Your team now has enough detail to answer the next round of questions moving forward. The review planning committee can provide further details to each specific departments that will need to review your plans and the work completed thus far. They can determine if you’re ready to go to public hearings.

Public hearings can last six to nine months– sometimes up to a year to obtain all the paperwork and approval letters. The timing varies greatly because, if the public asks for changes, your team needs to amend the site plans, resubmit them and then get another public hearing. This is a prime example of where experience pays. A civil engineering firm is more likely than a land owner to submit changes that will be accepted after the first round of resubmitting.

Construction Review and Possible Sale of Project

By this stage, you’ve already passed through the first part of the rezoning process. Most of the questions from the review board have been answered.

From here, it can take another six to nine months to start the construction process and finish the rezoning process. It often takes two years in total to complete all necessary permitting to rezone a piece of land from agricultural use to residential.

Construction can now begin.

However, at this stage, many developers choose to sell the land at this stage to maximize profits relevant to time invested.

It’s time to purchase again and start the next project.

If you do want to continue developing and plan to start construction, contact us so we can determine what we need to move forward with the process.

The concept of rezoning is simple: Developers rezone when the land they bought doesn’t match the intended use. However, the process itself can be anything but. First you have to understand the property–its limitations, the surrounding developments (current and future) and what all the possible options are, given the city or county’s past rezoning rulings. This is where a civil engineering firm comes in. A firm with decades of experience can not only give you answers about what’s possible, they can facilitate the rezoning process, making it as fast and cost-effective as possible.

Rezoning Basics

A big part of the rezoning process is making moves that are not only permissible by the governing entities, but accepted by the local community, be it farmers, HOAs or the like. These surrounding communities are typically less excited if lower income businesses, such as convenience stores, come in first. However, if these types of businesses do well, then the door is open for further, higher-income development. 

Everything happens in phases.

Let’s say you’re developing 200 acres and that land is surrounded on all sides by agriculture, and you want to change the zoning of your land to residential. Development at this stage doesn’t start with condos. Instead, you’ll likely be approved for a low-density residential project, such as one house per acre. Once there are some subdivisions in place with one home per acre, then the next developments come in, building two homes per acre. The allowable density keeps doubling the closer you get to the city center, until you reach 16 units per acre, which is average for condo and apartment developments.

In addition to density requirements, considerations have to be made regarding property value. If what is being developed is considered less attractive to the current community, a concession of some sort typically needs to be part of the plan.

One of the most cost-effective solutions when rezoning is to design a buffer, such as a greenspace or fence, to further separate existing residential or other development from your project, in the event that your project is residential and will have a higher density rate than the existing areas.

In the example of Orlando, once a freeway like the 429 has been built, that changes the rules. Now the outlying agricultural areas have a FDOT highway intersecting them. Because of that increase in traffic, now the city doesn’t want low-density housing built. Now they will want commercial use and higher-density housing.

If the land is agricultural but surrounded by industrially zoned land, the development will need to be industrial. You couldn’t rezone to residential. At best, could rezone to commercial. For example, when you see Amazon warehouses next to highways, the surrounding lands couldn’t be zoned residential. The industrial warehouses produce excessive noise. At best, you’d need a 100-foot buffer, but even then, you may not be able to zone the land residential.

Know Your Neighbors

The rezoning process steps can get very political. One key thing is to know who your neighbors are. In other words, if a senator, city commissioner, other government official, CEO of a large company or anyone else with significant community pull lives in this adjacent community, that’s something you want to know ideally before committing to the development project.

If you find out this information after the project has started, it can be helpful to hire lawyers in some cases to serve as the go-between to help keep the discussion civil. In many development projects, people can be the most complicated and unpredictable part of a project. The more experience your team has in handling community concerns, the greater your odds of success.

How Civil Engineers Help with Rezoning

In the above example of a buyer purchasing 200 acres, let’s say they don’t have a set plan as to how to develop it to achieve maximum profits. A firm such as Burkett Engineering can create a multi-use plan for the highest and best use (HBU) for the land. The plan will show the development in phases, and can be designed based on what amounts of money you need to make right away.

Civil engineers can help show you the big picture. They provide comps for your finished development project, letting you know what your projected profits might look like. Because they work with builders as well, they can provide cost estimations for the build to further help you dial in your numbers.

Most of all, with the right civil engineering firm, anything can work. We can get you 90% of what you want. The other 10% is dictated by the neighbors. If the neighbors either don’t show up or don’t care, then that 10% is decided by the jurisdiction, and you simply have to match your neighbors. But, if that last piece is decided by the neighbors, it helps to have experience on your side. Ideally, you and the team representing you approach the community with understanding–both of the community’s needs and what might work to meet those needs, as well as your budget and bottom line. In many cases, it comes down to finesse.

Timing for Rezoning

The amount of time you need to budget for the rezoning process steps is up to you. Every project consists of a lot of moving pieces. A civil engineering firm can help you as much or as little as you need, based on your budget and experience level. More seasoned developers may simply need a sounding board for a complex project. Other developers may want the engineering firm to handle all the land rezoning requirements for them. Chances are, you don’t want to go it alone. If you do, you may get bogged down in the details and miss crucial details and deadlines.

Working with an AHJ

Throughout the process, you or your civil engineering firm will be answering to and working with just one AHJ, or authority having jurisdiction over the zoning ordinances, aka the local laws governing how land can be used in whichever jurisdiction you’re in

If the land lies within city limits, then the city is the AHJ. If the land falls in an unincorporated area, then you’re dealing with the county. The AHJ may also be the state, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service or a handful of others.

A civil engineering firm can kick off the process by confirming which AHJ oversees your land. In most cases, we are familiar with their code already, which streamlines the review process, helping you reach a finished product sooner.