You may know what your property is zoned for.

You may even know how many homes are theoretically allowed.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have the right to build the project you have in mind.

Between what zoning appears to allow and what can actually be approved and built lies one of the most important—and often misunderstood—parts of real estate development:

Entitlements.

For property owners considering redevelopment, subdivision, townhomes, multifamily housing, middle housing, or other residential development, understanding entitlements is essential.

And they can be far more nuanced than they initially appear.

What Are Land Entitlements?

Land entitlements are the governmental approvals necessary to establish the legal right to develop a specific property in a particular way.

Depending on the property, project and jurisdiction, entitlements can involve approvals related to land use, subdivision, site layout, environmental review, zoning changes, conditional uses, variances, design review and other development requirements. Some projects require relatively straightforward administrative approvals; others involve multiple reviews, public notice, hearings or discretionary decisions.

Importantly, entitlements are not the same thing as building permits.

A building permit generally addresses whether a particular building complies with applicable construction requirements.

Entitlements address a more fundamental set of questions:

Can this property be developed as proposed?

Can it be divided the way you intend?

Can the proposed use, density and site configuration be approved?

And under what conditions?

In many residential developments, those questions have to be resolved before the project ever reaches vertical construction.

Zoning Is Only the Beginning

One of the most common misconceptions among property owners is that zoning determines exactly what can be built.

It doesn’t.

Zoning is incredibly important, but it is only one layer of the development analysis.

A zoning designation may establish things such as allowable uses, density, building height, setbacks or other development standards. But an actual residential project may be affected by many additional requirements.

A property may appear to support a certain number of homes based on zoning alone.

Then come the other questions.

How will those homes be accessed?

Can the property legally be divided?

Where will utilities go?

What happens with stormwater?

Are there critical areas?

Are there trees subject to retention requirements?

Does the street require improvements?

Are there easements?

Is there adequate fire access?

Does the proposed configuration satisfy dimensional requirements?

Does environmental review apply?

Will transportation impacts trigger additional requirements?

Are there design standards?

Are there conditions attached to an earlier approval?

Does the existing parcel even have the legal status the owner assumes it has?

Suddenly, “How many homes does the zoning allow?” becomes a very different question from “How many homes can actually be entitled on this property?”

Residential Entitlements Can Take Many Forms

There isn’t one universal document called a “residential entitlement.”

The approvals required depend on what is being proposed and where the property is located.

A residential entitlement process can potentially involve:

• Preliminary plats
• Short plats or short subdivisions
• Full subdivisions
• Unit lot subdivisions
• Site plan approvals
• Rezones
• Conditional use permits
• Variances
• Planned developments
• Boundary or lot line adjustments
• Environmental review
• Shoreline approvals
• Critical-area review
• Design review
• Development agreements
• Other jurisdiction-specific land-use approvals

And one residential project can require several different approvals working together.

This is one reason entitlement strategy becomes so site-specific.

Even the terminology varies among jurisdictions. Washington law, for example, distinguishes among preliminary plats, final plats, short subdivisions and unit lot subdivisions, while individual cities and counties establish additional local processes and requirements.

Subdivision Can Be an Entitlement of Its Own

For many residential developments, the question isn’t simply whether several homes can physically fit on a property.

It’s also:

How will the property be legally divided?

That distinction matters.

A subdivision or plat creates or modifies legal parcels. Preliminary plat review can examine the proposed arrangement of lots, streets and other development elements, while final platting establishes the resulting legal property configuration.

Depending on the jurisdiction and project, subdivision review can involve considerably more than drawing new property lines.

For example, a preliminary subdivision review may require information concerning traffic, drainage, environmental conditions, geotechnical conditions, trees, landscaping and the proposed site layout. Public notice and opportunities for participation may also be part of the process.

For a property owner looking at a relatively ordinary residential parcel, this can be surprising.

What begins as:

“Could I turn this into several homes?”

can quickly become a land-use, engineering, infrastructure and legal-lot question.

Unit Lot Subdivisions Add Another Layer

Townhome, cottage and other attached or clustered residential projects can introduce yet another concept: unit lot subdivision.

A unit lot subdivision can allow individual homes within a larger residential development to be placed on separate unit lots, while certain development standards are evaluated at the parent-lot level rather than treating each resulting unit lot as an entirely independent conventional building lot.

That distinction is important enough that Washington law specifically defines both the “parent lot” and “unit lot,” and Seattle notes that its unit lot subdivision process is used for the sale of individual houses, townhouses and rowhouses within an approved residential development.

For an owner simply wondering whether several townhomes could replace an existing house, this illustrates how quickly the development question can become more complicated than counting units.

The Site Itself Can Change the Entitlement Picture

Two neighboring properties with the same zoning can have very different development potential.

Why?

Because development doesn’t happen on a zoning map.

It happens on an actual piece of property.

The physical characteristics of that property can become part of the entitlement analysis.

Depending on the site, questions can arise around:

Topography.
Slopes and grade changes can affect site layout, access, drainage and infrastructure.

Wetlands and critical areas.
Environmental features and associated buffers can affect portions of a property that otherwise appear developable.

Flood conditions.
Floodplain regulations can introduce additional development requirements.

Soils and geotechnical conditions.
What is happening below the surface can matter just as much as what is visible above it.

Trees and vegetation.
Tree retention and replacement standards can affect how a site is configured.

Existing structures.
Keeping an existing home while developing another portion of a property can create a very different entitlement analysis from clearing the entire site.

Parcel shape.
An irregular lot may create challenges that aren’t apparent from total square footage alone.

The property has to work as a physical development site—not simply as a collection of zoning statistics.

Access Can Become a Major Entitlement Issue

Every new home needs a way to connect with the surrounding transportation system.

That sounds simple until a development begins taking shape.

Residential projects may raise questions involving:

• Public versus private streets
• Driveways
• Shared access
• Alleys
• Emergency vehicle access
• Fire apparatus requirements
• Pedestrian circulation
• Sidewalks
• Rights-of-way
• Sight distance
• Road width
• Street frontage
• Dedications
• Easements
• Off-site improvements
• Transportation impacts

A proposed subdivision can also establish new streets and infrastructure as part of the platting process. In some jurisdictions, development review may result in requirements for roads, sidewalks, drainage systems, utilities and other on- or off-site improvements.

Again, the question isn’t merely whether several houses fit on a drawing.

It’s whether a functioning development can be approved.

Utilities Can Change Everything

Residential density creates demand for infrastructure.

That introduces another set of questions.

Is public sewer available?

Where is the connection?

Does adequate capacity exist?

What about water?

Stormwater?

Electricity?

Gas, if applicable?

Telecommunications?

Will infrastructure need to cross another property?

Are easements necessary?

Are utility extensions required?

Will existing systems need to be upgraded?

Does the proposed project create infrastructure requirements that weren’t obvious when looking at the property initially?

A site can appear highly attractive from a zoning perspective while infrastructure tells a very different story.

Stormwater Is More Than Where the Rain Goes

Stormwater can be easy to underestimate because an undeveloped or lightly developed property may seem to handle rainfall perfectly well today.

Development changes the site.

Roofs, driveways, walkways, roads and other hard surfaces change how water moves across and through a property.

That can introduce requirements involving drainage analysis, detention, treatment, conveyance, infiltration and other engineering considerations.

For residential subdivisions, drainage information can become part of preliminary entitlement review itself.

Which means stormwater isn’t necessarily something that gets figured out after the development plan is approved.

It can influence whether the development plan works in the first place.

Environmental Review May Become Part of the Process

Depending on the jurisdiction, location and scale of a residential project, environmental review may also be required.

That can introduce another layer of analysis concerning the project’s potential impacts.

In Seattle, for example, preliminary land-use review can identify whether a project may require SEPA review, while other Washington jurisdictions maintain separate environmental, shoreline and critical-area approval processes.

The specific requirements vary enormously from one project to another.

Which is precisely why entitlement analysis has to begin with the individual property.

Public Notice and Hearings Can Matter

Some residential entitlements are handled administratively.

Others may involve public notice.

Some may provide comment periods.

Some may be appealable.

Others may require hearings or decisions by hearing examiners, planning commissions, city councils or other decision-making bodies.

Even within a single jurisdiction, the process can change depending on the type and scale of the proposed development. Seattle, for example, uses different review and decision procedures for short subdivisions and full subdivisions.

This introduces something that is difficult to represent on a feasibility spreadsheet:

process risk.

A technically plausible project still has to successfully navigate the process applicable to it.

An Approval Can Come With Conditions

“Approved” does not necessarily mean:

Build exactly what you submitted with no additional obligations.

Entitlement decisions may include conditions that become part of the approved project.

Those conditions can relate to numerous aspects of development, depending on the jurisdiction and proposal.

And conditions matter because development is ultimately an economic exercise.

A requirement that seems relatively small in isolation may affect design, schedule, infrastructure or cost.

Multiple requirements can interact.

This is why experienced developers pay close attention not only to whether an entitlement can be obtained, but also to what the resulting entitlement actually requires.

Timing Matters More Than Many Owners Expect

Entitlements also exist within time.

Development regulations change.

Comprehensive plans change.

Zoning changes.

Application requirements change.

Fees change.

Housing laws change.

Environmental regulations change.

Infrastructure conditions change.

And approvals themselves can have expiration periods or deadlines associated with subsequent steps.

The rules in place when an owner first begins thinking about a property may not necessarily be the same rules governing the project later.

Timing can therefore become part of development strategy long before construction begins.

Entitlement Does Not Automatically Mean Feasibility

This distinction may be the most important of all.

A project can potentially be entitleable without being a good development.

Obtaining permission to build something does not mean it will be profitable to build it.

A residential project still has to carry the costs associated with land, design, engineering, consultants, municipal fees, infrastructure, financing, construction, insurance, taxes, marketing, sales and numerous other expenses.

Time has a cost as well.

So the goal shouldn’t simply be:

Can we get this approved?

It should ultimately be:

Is the project worth pursuing?

Those are very different questions.

Entitlements Can Create Value Before Construction Begins

This is also why development doesn’t necessarily begin when an excavator arrives.

A considerable amount of development value can potentially be created on paper first.

An existing property may have uncertainty surrounding what can be built.

An entitled property may have substantially less uncertainty.

The project has moved from an idea toward an approved development opportunity.

That distinction can matter whether an owner ultimately intends to build, sell, partner with another party, or pursue another strategy.

But reaching that point requires much more than filling out an application.

The Most Important Entitlement Questions Are Property-Specific

There is no universal checklist that can tell every property owner exactly what their entitlement process will look like.

A townhome project in Seattle is different from a subdivision outside Dallas.

An infill property in Nashville is different from a redevelopment opportunity in Miami.

Boise, Charleston and Raleigh each have their own land-use regulations, approval structures, infrastructure considerations and development environments.

Even two projects in the same city can follow different paths.

That’s why online research can only take a property owner so far.

The internet can tell you what a code says.

It can’t necessarily tell you how all of the requirements affecting your particular property interact.

And in residential development, that interaction is often where the real complexity lies.

Before You Develop, Understand the Path to Approval

If you’re considering developing your property, you don’t need to become an expert in plats, zoning codes, utility systems, stormwater engineering, environmental regulations and municipal approval procedures.

But you do need to understand that these issues can materially affect what is possible.

The earlier they are identified, the better you can understand the opportunity in front of you.

At Liberty Investments, we help property owners evaluate development opportunities and navigate the complexities that stand between an idea and an executable project.

Have a property with development potential?

We can help you explore the possibilities and understand what it may take to move your project forward.

Contact Liberty Investments to start a conversation about your property.