Planning your community

“Now entering Harrietta, A zoned community.” In driving to a wedding last weekend I passed through this quaint town and saw this sign at the city limits. Working in a development company and growing up in the real estate business, Zoning is something that I have been very familiar with. I can’t count the amount of times I have heard, Unless we can get the zoning needed, we will not be able to purchase this property. From a purely profit standpoint, the zoning can have one of the greatest impacts on the value of a piece of property. Even with Location, location, location, being the mantra of real estate investors, if you have a prime corner, and the only thing you can put on it is a single family home, the piece of property is only going to be worth 25% of what the house will sell for completed. Had this piece been zoned commercial, you could sell it in some cases for hundred’s of thousands more.
I had the opportunity to attend a workshop last week with many of the local officials on planning and zoning boards from Ingham and Eaton counties. This was a three hour workshop on the basics of planning and zoning from the government side of the business. Forsberg for the most part has had excellent experiences working with many of the local municipalities and has built many projects that have been win-win for the different communities, and for our company. Occasionally there have been some head-butting, but in the end things have always worked out. Seeing how zoning is put in place gave a little bit different perspective to how our communities work.
When you see a sign on a town that states it is a zoned or planned community, most likely it has had a Comprehensive Plan or sometimes known as a Master Plan put in place. This is an official document that is authorized under Michigan law. It has many components, and in many ways, could be looked at as the business plan for a community. If you really want to see where your community is heading in the next 10 to 20 years, this is the document to look at. It will tell you what the community planners are expecting for the municipality. According to the Michigan Association of Planning, the compnents of a Comprehensive Plan is as follows; a Transportation Plan, Housing Plan, Land Use Plan, Recreation Plan, Facilities Plan, and Sub Areas Plan. I will go into detail on these sections in later posts. Interacting with the officials, and learning what they do about putting these documents together was a great experience. If you are interested in real estate investing, this is a good document to look at to see what types of investments that a particular municipality is looking for. Talk to the planners about what they want to see for growth, or rehabilitation in their communities. For more information on the Michigan Association of Planning please go to www.planningmi.org . Have a great holiday.