Mar 6

Mar 6 Land Development In Rural America

Countryside land development:

I wasn’t raised a country boy but when it comes to land development that’s where my heart is. The bulk of my land development career has been creating 5+ acre residential lots in the rural transition zone (RTZ). I think I made up the term rural transition zone (not to be confused with rural transitional zoning), since I’ve never heard anyone else use it, but if they have they can go ahead and take the credit.

My RTZ is outside of the urban growth boundaries and big cities, but close enough to expand and/or tie into utilities like public water. There are some advantages to developing rural land in the RTZ and also some disadvantages. Let’s take a look at some by describing my actual experiences developing land around a small town in the Pacific Northwest.

How I got rural:

Scott Paper was getting out of the timber business in the late 80’s and early 90’s. My first investor bought up some huge parcels from their disposition guy at fire sale prices and that’s where it all begins. I came on board as a total Newbie in ‘93 with no land development experience and my job was to somehow bring these huge parcels to finished residential building lots by dividing / subdividing them. The learning curve was steep and my career survival was in question more than once in the first couple of years. The investor was not a patient man and already felt like he was behind the power curve.

The town:

This was in the western part of Washington state and the parcels were about 20 miles away from the largest city and close to a small town that was put on the map purely because of past logging activity. The town was pretty dead at the time because of the logging moratoriums put in place when the spotted owl landed on the endangered species list. Nothing else there in the form of human activity except a few homesteaded farms and a town that was trying to reinvent itself by becoming the gateway to the Cascade Foothills. The only problem with their strategy was that there were already a lot of other gateways to the Cascade Foothills, but it was the best bet for the town’s future… until my investor showed up.

Natural resources:

The human activity part may have been pretty slow but the natural beauty of the area was spectacular. Mt Pilchuck and the Cascade Foothills surrounded all of my investors land holdings and the Pilchuck River and a few year-round streams flowed through them. Together, they provided the mountain views and water features that my future buyers really went for. These streams also had killer salmon and steelhead fishing and yes, I spent a few hours drift fishing for those big hogs during what should have been my land development field time.

Putting the town on the map:

With all of the residential lots that we were planning the very character of this town was going to be changed, provided we were successful. I definitely needed some local cooperation and was lucky to have just the right guy. Turns out that the disposition guy for Scott Paper, Marc K., just happened to be a former childhood resident of the town. Marc stuck around to manage the land for my investor after the sale and he knew everybody that mattered in town. I kept him around when I came aboard and it was more than his local contacts that made me do it. Marc taught me all about rural land, surveying, legal descriptions, gravel mining and in particular - strategic boundary line adjustments. As a Certified Forester he schooled me on forest practices and how to manage timber stands for optimal stumpage. Thanks forever, buddy boy!

Local resistance:

My early childhood and teenage years gave me a lot of exposure to rural towns and their residents. My Mom and Dad were big into fishing and my best friends family went fishing and hunting every chance they got. They always took me along for the adventures. Between that and the small cow town where I went to college, I have spent serious time around rural towns and the locals all of my life. In land development I knew that there was going to be local resistance since anytime you plan to significantly change anything about an area, especially rural, you are going to be considered a threat.

I decided right off that I would use the same approach as a land developer that I used in high school when asking a farmer if I could set up a blind and shoot ducks on his property. It’s called polite door knocking and that’s what I did. Well before I posted any Public Notice signs for a project I would start with the neighbors on my property boarders and door knock outward into the surrounding area to let them know what I would be up to. I can’t say that the locals were always happy about my project plans but I can say I never had a door slammed in my face. I’ve sat around a few kitchen tables over the years and having established quality relationships, I have actually been invited back to sit again at times. Small favors were occasionally exchanged that reinforced mutual respect.

Fear of change:

The bedrock driver of local resistance to land development projects is fear of change. The fear-based stories get circulated down at The Buzz In Steakhouse, G.F. Hardware & Feed, or down at The Spar Tavern. Since we all have the ability to stretch the truth, especially when fearful, stories about the projects balloon into ridiculous proportions. That’s my silver bullet in managing the small town rumor mill - communication! I’ve always developed projects that fit in with the local rural character. This means 5+ acre lots, paved roads, all utilities and septic designs. Leaving enough green buffer around the projects helps to conceal them from view and they are done the right way every time. Once I finished my first project and developed some local relationships, my other projects had much less resistance. Why? If you plan to do something that fits in, are truthful about the project and actually do what you say you are going to do - you earn trust. Trust overcomes fear and a great rural developer fits in not only as a local business person, but also a trusted human being. Trust can be broken in an instant, so keep that in mind.

Question: Every land developer creates a reputation. What’s yours going to be?

Hard local opposition:

In spite of all this I’ve had hard opposition to my projects from certain local influencers. I treat them the same as I do every other local and I don’t pander to them. Every land developer, including rural land developers, are going to have their share of project haters and it doesn’t matter what you do. It’s not a popularity contest when you are going to change the face and character of a small town and I do respect that position. The silver bullet in this situation is compliance of the project with county code and all applicable laws. Opposition based on pure emotion won’t work and the developer with a quality project that fully complies will prevail in the end, no matter how many project haters show up… at least in my experience.

A good read on how this works is: Opposition To Plat Subdivisions: Opposition To Plat Subdivisions — Land Development Realities .

Locals and my consultant crews:

Many times the very first thing the locals see when there are plans to permanently change the local landscape is a surveying crew. The locals spot ‘em fast. Old Jake is driving down the county arterial, spots the survey crew and wheels the truck over in the blink of an eye to find out what’s up. Surveying crews have been through all of this before and every one of them has a standard line that keeps them out of giving up details. I like it that way. As Old Jake climbs back into his F-250 he’s climbing back in with a headful of questions and no answers. “I don’t know, we were just told to come out here and do some locates”…the surveyors always say, or some such.

Local curiosity and suspicion happens when my consultants visit the project to collect science and data for the plat application. Their presence is an unnatural and potentially troubling disturbance for the locals and raises questions that they are more than happy to try to answer on their own. My solution to this dilemma is to make sure my consultants know it is ok for them to provide my contact information so that I can outreach to the folks with questions. I tell my field guys to give my name and the business address or my email, not my phone number, because I want communications in writing. This way I have written documentation from the locals about their questions and I keep them on file, along with my responses.

A lot of land developers prefer to stay as far below the radar screen as possible and if that works it’s fine with me. Having been a rural developer in a small town, I have preferred to be a little more open. At the same time I am very careful about what I say because it will be permanently remembered and if it is in this situation, before the plat application is submitted, what I think I am going to develop in the beginning will probably have some changes in the end. Credibility suffers when one thing is said and another is done. When the Plat Application number is provided by the county I forward it to the folks in my outreach file so that these interested locals can follow along as the project is being reviewed by the Planning Department. I get opposition at hearings, but I’ve also got unexpected support from the locals.

Real Estate Agents and the local community:

I was truly lucky up there with the only 2 listing agents I ever used and I’ll talk about them in reverse. The 2nd listing broker was Cheryl D. and she owned her own office in town and was a local and area favorite. She knew everyone from childhood and was beyond connected in town. Her reputation was well deserved because she was very accurate in representing my land, was a total professional and worked hard for my projects. She worked for me for about 2 years after my first agent Raye had to retire.

Speaking of Raye, I got off to a rocky start with him. I know that because he literally “fired me” after our first meeting by dropping the listings he had on a bunch of lots he was marketing for my investor in a nearby project. Knowing what I know today it was all my doing, but I was new, stupid and a know-it-all about something I didn’t know anything about at all - land!

At our first meeting I gave Raye a bunch of grief about how long some of the lots had been on the market and that he needed to step up his game by doing XYZ…(I forget exactly what stupid ideas they were). That night he faxed me a listing rescission for everything and wrote me a cryptic note that said he wouldn’t be lectured to by anyone. It was a gutsy call on his part because he was giving up some serious commission.

Luckily my land manager Marc stepped in and got us back together after a couple of months and he made sure that we both saved face in the process. Raye was a platinum level producer for me and he taught me how to correctly market, negotiate and close on land. He sold everything for me for over 15 years until he couldn’t carry on anymore for health reasons. When Cheryl D. came aboard to replace him I made damn sure that Raye got a referral commission on every single lot that she listed and since she was a standup Broker (and human being too), she probably would have done it on her own anyway.

Both of these local agents were top notch, well versed in land and excelled at marketing both inside and outside of the area. It seems the best agents are well connected, specialize in land, are hard workers, and have great negotiation skills. They also are the outreach ambassadors in the local community, so I always make sure to review and provide marketing guidance so that the outreach objectives of my projects are communicated uniformly - from, by and to the other agents involved.

If you are asking the question “Do I Need A Real Estate Agent?” see this: Do I Need A Real Estate Agent? — Land Development Realities

Land Development In Rural America

Whether it’s in Granite Falls, Washington • Glades, Florida • Wasilla, Alaska • or somewhere in Wisconsin, I consider a business person lucky if they have the opportunity and privilege to conduct their business in rural communities. For me it is an environment where credibility is measured by honorable actions and it can be an environment to earn the kind of trust from special folks that is not often given nowadays. Sure, it isn’t always smooth sailing. I’ve had my fair share of busted down gates and tipped over signs from locals who aren’t happy about their deer hunting hotspot becoming a residential community, but I think I gave more to this little town than I took away.

You see, land development has a social component and that means dealing effectively with people of all types and with differing opinions. In the process of trying to fit in and deliver the best product for the market I have never lost site of the true business objectives:

Create the most profitable projects possible.
Do it as quickly and economically as possible.
Provide a better than expected finished product.

At the same time I have found that this can be done by constructive engagement with the local community, dealing fairly and honestly and handling conflict in a professional way. Not only that, you might as well have a little fun and the farmer next door with a utility or row crop tractor that pulls your high centered truck out of the slime in the dead of winter can be a great guy to know! Good luck!

Contact me at: ldr@landdevelopmentrealities.com