About

So, who am I?  I am a former Connecticut professional land surveyor having had a very successful consultant practice providing land surveying and engineering services almost exclusively to subdivision developers and home builders for 31 years.

I also was a successful developer of residential subdivisions in several Connecticut towns over a 37 year span, both as the sole owner and in partnerships.

My professional expertise was sought by the Town of Guilford, CT where I resided, in two important areas:

1. As the only non-governmental member of the ad-hoc sub-committee advising the Planning and Zoning Commission on the implementation of a new subdivision regulation, “Open Space Development Subdivisions”, for which I created the entire technical section of the regulation;
2. Vice Chairman of the Guilford Zoning Board of Appeals, for which I created new technical standards for applications seeking a variance from the Zoning Regulations.

HOW I BEGAN AS A SUBDIVISION DEVELOPER

My wife Carol and I were a young married couple expecting our first child, renting the second floor of a three- family house in New Haven, Connecticut.  I was a survey technician with one of the largest engineering and surveying firms in southern Connecticut, Carol was a registered nurse at a local hospital.  We had saved a modest amount of money for a down payment towards a single family house, and were looking in the suburbs, specifically in the area referred to as the East Shore towns, the several towns east of New Haven fronting on Long Island Sound, one of which was the Town of Guilford.

We chose Guilford, a town settled in 1639 with the third highest number of surviving colonial homes in the U.S.   It has a large geographic area and in the 1970’s had a modest though growing population due to the opening of the Connecticut Turnpike (I-95) in 1958.  That opening resulted in continuous construction of residential subdivisions up to when we began looking in 1974.

Most homes being built were large 8 and 9 room colonial style homes, our style of home, but as it turned out, requiring a higher down payment than our savings permitted, and an uncomfortable  monthly mortgage payment.  So we decided it was prudent to look for a less expensive, older and smaller home as a starter, but we were soon disappointed by what was available, so we decided not to buy, instead to continue saving for that colonial home for a couple of years.

A few months later I discussed with my wife an alternative, instead of waiting two years while continuing to save, instead look for a small tract of land to subdivide, sell off some lots to pay back the purchase price and expenses for subdivision design, site improvements such as underground utilities and possibly a private shared driveway if there were rear lots, and financing costs.

Our goal was twofold, make a profit and obtain a large lot without cost to build ourselves a custom colonial home.

My wife Carol was skeptical at first, saying no one without a lot of money can do that, and you would have to be a home builder with years of experience.  I convinced her it was feasible based upon my conversations with the developer clients of my employer for whom I was designing their subdivisions.

Most of them had started as small contractors with just a dump truck and backhoe, grew that into a good size site contractor business, then as a side line began buying a lot or two from large developers they worked for, building homes on speculation, and eventually buying land tracts for subdivisions of their own.  What they lacked was significant knowledge as to the entire subdivision process other than finding a land tract through a realtor and hiring consultants for its subdivision.

So we agreed it could be possible with my subdivision design expertise that it wasn’t necessary for me to have gone through the same steps that the developers had, and that our savings could be sufficient for a down payment if we located a small enough tract of land offered by a seller by-passing realtors, and willing to finance its purchase, so we began to look.

AND YES, IT WAS POSSIBLE. WE DID IT!

Our First Subdivision

In looking for a small land tract we used every method we could think of, multiple real estate agencies (no internet then), community board postings such as in coffee shops, inquiring of the Guilford Assessor and Town Clerk if anyone had mentioned they were thinking of selling a land tract, driving throughout town looking for, “For Sale” signs on vacant land, and the classified ads of the local newspaper.  And bingo, after five months of using all the above methods, a classified ad in the local newspaper brought success.

It was a 13 acre parcel of wooded land located in Guilford with variable terrain, frontage on a quiet town road and a 50 foot wide access strip from a permanent cul-de-sac town road in an adjoining subdivision.  The rear boundary of the property was the Neck River, its centerline being the town line boundary between the towns of Guilford and Madison, the Madison side being a State Forest, very private.

We had a verbal agreement with the owner immediately after we walked the property and a signed contract within the week.  The property owner financed our purchase with us making a 15% down payment.

The subdivision design consisted of five lots of which we planned (needed) to sell four, two one acre lots fronting on the quiet town road, two interior (rear) lots of two acres each, to be accessed by a common private driveway running off of the adjoining cul-de-sac road which also served a seven acre lot at the rear of the property we were keeping for ourselves.

Within six months the subdivision was designed, had received subdivision and inland wetlands approvals by municipal regulatory agencies, and we were installing a rolled gravel common driveway from the cul-de-sac with underground utilities to serve the two rear lots to be offered for sale, and our future homesite lot.

We sold all four lots to a local custom home builder, beginning with the two lots fronting on the quiet town road two months after we purchased the property, and the two rear lots after the common driveway was under construction.  We paid off the owner’s mortgage eight months after our purchase, and got back our down payment, subdivision design expenses, driveway and utility installation costs, realizing a nice profit and a seven acre lot, a very successful first subdivision.

Personal plans change, and four years later we divided our seven acre lot into two lots, selling each lot for nearly double what we paid for the entire 13 acres.

This funded our next subdivision of 34 acres in an area of Guilford with larger minimum lot area requirements, creating 4 lots, of which 3 lots of 2 acres each were planned to be sold to reimburse us for the purchase price and all development expenses, with us keeping a 28 acre estate sized lot on which to build our personal home.

It was followed in a couple of years with us buying the adjoining property of 51 acres, subdividing it into 13 lots, obtaining approval to excavate a 900 foot long 4 ½ acre groundwater pond, selling its earth materials for $150,000 to the excavation contractor who also excavated the pond without cost, significantly increasing the value of the 4 lots which fronted on the pond.

Other subdivisions followed over the years, all of which made us very nice financial returns.

YOU ALSO CAN DO IT

So How About Becoming a Subdivision Developer?

So, whether you presently own a tract of land and it is to be your only subdivision, or you will be repeating the process as an ongoing business, the goal is to maximize the financial potential of each project and complete it as quickly as possible.

So, for you to have success as a developer, whether of a single subdivision or of multiple subdivisions, I offer you my decades of expertise in both the designing of, and developing of, very successful residential subdivisions.

To have my very valuable advisory expertise, you only need to take one action, purchase my advisory expertise content from “LAND DEVELOPMENT ADVISORS USA”.

It is the key resource for you to become a successful developer of subdivisions.  Everything you need to understand to be that successful subdivision developer is provided in my extensive advisory information which is spelled out in my, “EXPERTISE CONTENT“.  which follows “PROJECT MANAGEMENT”, the immediate next page.