Mr. Savvy knows when to call in an environmental specialist, Mr. First doesn’t
Dan Cary
JD White
The ubiquitous utility company slogan applies to development as well. A developer needs to know what the parcel’s environmental constraints are before he lays his money down. With the new critical area ordinances, along with state and federal laws, a smart, savvy developer will investigate the elements of the site that are covered by the ordinance.
Consider Mr. First, the old-school developer. Mr. First has located acreage in a prime location; it’s got interchange access and high visibility, it’s zoned appropriately and is in his price range. Mr. First does some research and decides it’s a good deal. This old developer’s been around the block a time or two, so he knows about critical areas and wetlands, and he knows where they are on the site. So he locks it up with an option to buy. Then he spends thousands of dollars developing a master plan, calculating his profit margin for the types of development that will make him the most money, and now, at last, Mr. First can put his development plans into action. Then, in his pre-application conference with the city or county, he finds out he needs a critical areas report – a wetland delineation and a habitat assessment.
Mr. First calls an environmental consultant, who goes out to the site and independently assesses its natural resources. The environmental consultant delineates the wetlands and assesses the habitat according to the ordinances and required manuals. The surveyor surveys the lines, and – lo and behold – there’s a wetland and a critical habitat element mapped through the middle of where Mr. First’s retail development was going to go. With buffers and mitigation requirements, Mr. First’s highly developable land is now a lot more limited than he imagined it would be when he laid his money down. So whose fault is it? Of course Mr. First blames the natural resource consultant. But is it really the consultant’s fault? His job is to report independently what is present on the site and anticipate what the local, state and federal agencies will regulate, saving Mr. First from going back and forth with the agencies, delaying approval of his project. The real problem was that the environmental consultant was hired too late in the game.
Now enter you, Mr. Savvy. You’ve found what you believe is the right property or, indeed, several properties that look good. In the beginning, the process is much the same as with Mr. First – negotiating the price, getting a market analysis, doing some preliminary master planning. But unlike Mr. First, before Mr. Savvy gets too far, or spends too much money, he spends a little bit to help determine whether the project can be done: he hires his favorite environmental consultant to make a preliminary assessment of the environmental constraints on each site.
The consultant goes out to the potential site, identifies the critical areas, estimates natural resource features on an aerial photo (wetlands, slopes, priority habitat, and riparian areas), and makes a preliminary determination of buffers. Provided to Mr. Savvy, the digitized sketch map becomes a tool for negotiating the price of developable land, as well as for master planning that will acknowledge and incorporate the natural resources that require buffers and are protected by various jurisdictions.
Mr. Savvy now knows what is developable. He can decide whether it is worthwhile to impact the natural resources and go through permitting and mitigation for the impacts, or whether to incorporate the resources in the development as amenities, which many times will increase the value and marketability of the remaining property. The small price spent on the environmental consultant is money well spent and saves him large amounts of money and time planning something that can’t be done. If he decides to go forward, the environmental consultant can go back and perform more detailed studies, and since he knows the site already, can incorporate his earlier work.
Dan Cary is the Natural Resources team leader for JD White, a division of BERGER/ABAM Engineers Inc.
