Site-Selection Criteria and Selection Process

Appendix 9

Site-Selection Criteria and Selection Process

The following are NECESSARY conditions for a site.

N1. Building codes allow trailers and mobile homes to be used.

N2. Water and mineral rights are included in the land sale. This is easily determined from the broker and may not be a problem many places. Both are problems in the western U.S. If mineral rights are not included, the holder of them can prevent construction on the site. Obviously we need water and we will either have to drill our own well or find a place served by a rural water system.

N3. It is legal for 100 people to live on the parcel of land. Zoning ordinances could prevent this. Again, it should be easy to determine from the broker. Likewise, it must be feasible to build either 20 single family houses or a multiple-dwelling housing unit. Subdivision regulations may impact this.

N4. Jobs are readily available within one-hour commuting time. This means locating within 40-or-so miles of a city of reasonable size.

N5. Percolation tests are satisfactory for septic-tank construction. This is a usual condition on a land sale just as termite inspection is in purchase of a house in town.

The amount of land required depends on the percolation as does the cost of installing the septic-tank drain lines.

N6. Access by two-wheel drive vehicles is available. Easily determined.

N7. Access to electricity and telephone can be arranged. This may take some probing although it should be well known.

These last three are rather standard considerations in the purchase of country land. Are there others of which we are not aware? One item mentioned was to be sure to consider climate at times other than the season the property is being viewed. This includes climate changes that have been seen in the past few decades such as a change in rainfall.

N8. We need enough land for about 100 people. Septic-tank regulations sometimes are posed in the form of "one dwelling per acre." This form generally makes the land prohibitively expensive. If the septic-tank regulations allow combination into a single drain field, a higher density can be achieved.

High density with septic-tank disposal seems to be about a half-acre per dwelling so we are looking for ten to fifteen acres.

N9. There should be no "nuisance factor" for the property that makes it unattractive. Recall that by "attractive" we mean attracting FMF members to move in and non-members to join FMF. Nuisance factors include (but are not limited to) mosquitoes; sand fleas; chiggers; poisonous spiders or snakes; local rabid bats, skunks, or foxes; mud slides; sink holes; methane geysers; bad smells from a nearby garbage dump; and roars from a nearby airport or from a military bombing or firing range. The best approach toward this possible problem is to be on the suspicious side in shopping, asking realtors (who are bound to full disclosure of anything they know about), and perhaps talking to neighbors.

The following are DESIRABLE, but not necessary.

D1. Low hills. We do not want to be in very rugged terrain because it will increase building costs. Very flat terrain is probably good farm land and expensive. Also, low hills will reduce the wind speed near the ground. Looking at maps, there seems to be a correlation between hill height and the low wind speed areas in many cases.

D2. A few trees. A lot of trees will make site preparation expensive. A few trees help reduce wind speeds. After we have structure locations laid out, we could plant some trees as wind breaks. Several acres that are densely covered with trees besides the six clear acres would also reduce ground wind speeds in the clear area and would be desirable.

D3. A low cost for registering securities for sale in the state. This is probably correlated with the total state population.

D4. We can buy the land for $30,000. Preliminary investigations have shown that while most rural sites are either smaller than we need or much larger, there are properties in our size range and fitting this budget.

D5. We can arrange the electricity and phone access for $10,000. There is undoubtedly a trade off between land price and access cost for electricity and phone. The actual condition we have budgeted is $40,000 for ten acres of land and connection to phone and electricity.

D6. Jobs are expected to be easy to locate. As distinct from N5, this means that it would be desirable to find an area with favorable economic conditions and it would be desirable to find an area where that was expected to be true over the next several years.

Site-Selection Procedure

Site selection has focused on finding counties where building codes restrictions are minimal so that we have the greatest flexibility in what we build and how fast we build it.

We got a copy of "Directory of Building Codes and Regulations." The state directory does show whether there is a mandatory minimum statewide code. The counties in such states may have, but do not necessarily have, building codes. By narrowing the search to possible states, we got few enough counties to begin calling each one and asking.

There are a baker's dozen types of codes indexed for each state with tables showing the name of the code, its technical basis, its applicability, and its preemptive application. The type of code is of considerable importance and we focused on building (structural), mechanical (hvac), plumbing, electric, and manufactured housing codes. We ignored energy, gas, fire prevention, life safety, accessibility, modular, and indoor air quality codes.

We are interested in applicability to single-family dwellings which might show as "all buildings" or "all non-farm buildings", for instance, or in the one-and-two family dwelling code type. A negative reading on applicability might be "All government buildings" or "All buildings with six or more dwellings". It should be clear that the answer one gets depends on the question one is asking.

The specific question addressed in the following table is: Is there a statewide code applicable to single family dwellings?
If the code applies to single family dwellings and if the preemptive application is something like "mandatory minimum," then there is a statewide code for single family dwellings.

The answers were boiled down to:
yes - there is a statewide code for single family dwellings.
no - there is not a statewide code for single family dwellings.
none - there are no statewide codes for any buildings.

	build	hvac	plumb	elec	mfg
AL	yes	no	no	no	yes
AZ	none	none	none	yes	none
AK	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
CA	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
CO	no	no	no	no	none
CT	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
DL	none	none	none	yes	none
FL	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
GA	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
HI	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
ID	no	no	yes	yes	yes
IL	none	none	yes	none	none
IN	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
IA	no	no	no	no	yes
KS	no	no	no	no	none
KY	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
LA	no	none	no	no	none
ME	none	none	yes	yes	yes
MD	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
MA	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
MI	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
MN	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
MS	no	no	no	no	yes
MO	no	no	no	no	none
MT	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
NE	no	none	none	yes	none
NV	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
NH	no	none	yes	yes	none
NJ	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
NM	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
NY	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
NC	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
ND	no	no	yes	yes	none
OH	no	no	no	no	none
OK	no	no	no	no	none
OR	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
PA	none	none	none	none	none
RI	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
SC	no	no	no	no	yes
SD	no	no	yes	yes	none
TN	no	no	no	yes	yes
TX	none	none	none	none	none
UT	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
VT	no	no	no	yes	none
VA	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
WA	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
WV	yes	yes	yes	yes	none
WI	no	no	yes	yes	none
WY	no	no	none	yes	none

As rough sorting method, consider building (structural) and plumbing codes as more intrusive than hvac and electrical codes, scoring -5 for "yes" for the former and -4 for "yes" for the latter. Score the negative of the "yes" score for "no," and one more for "none."

The manufactured housing codes deal with installation and could affect price some, but are probably not very intrusive. Also, they should be of concern primarily in the short run. Score a "yes" as -3 and a "none" as +3 (there weren't any "no" cases).

Then the following is the high end of the sorted list:

	build	hvac	plumb	elec	mfg
14 WY	no	no	none	yes	none
15 NE	no	none	none	yes	none
16 AZ	none	none	none	yes	none
16 DL	none	none	none	yes	none
16 IA	no	no	no	no	yes
16 MS	no	no	no	no	yes
16 SC	no	no	no	no	yes
22 CO	no	no	no	no	none
22 KS	no	no	no	no	none
22 MO	no	no	no	no	none
22 OH	no	no	no	no	none
22 OK	no	no	no	no	none
23 LA	no	none	no	no	none
25 PA	none	none	none	none	none
25 TX	none	none	none	none	none

Following this cut which focused on being able to satisfy N1, the need for building code that will allow mobile homes and trailers, further filtering was done to address N4, the need for jobs within a commute of one hour.

In each of the fifteen states above, an almanac was searched for counties with between 250,000 and 750,000 population. County populations were considered more indicative of city size than city populations. The size range was chosen by a guess that smaller counties would not offer an adequate job market while larger counties would not have affordable land within an hour's commute.

These counties were termed "metropolitan counties." Then an atlas was searched. Some of the "metropolitan counties" turned out to be large suburban counties of huge cities, and these were dropped. All counties adjacent to the remaining isolated metropolitan counties were noted, and their populations found from the almanac.

Each county was given a rating (the number that precedes the state name) as follows:

rating = (metropolitan county population) 5 * (adjacent rural county population)

This rating was developed to highlight counties with low population (and thus likely low land prices and minimal building codes) near large job markets. The following chart lists the top twenty counties. The numbers following each entry are the population of the metropolitan county (in thousands) followed by the population of the rural county (in thousands).

Noting that Austin appeared as metropolitan county in four of these top 20 possibilities, search was begun there. The plan had been to find out about all of these 20, but the four around Austin all had no building code except waste disposal code, so we began a more intensive study of the area.

Lee County had only a small area within an hour's commute of Austin and had just one real estate listing within that area, so it was dropped. Caldwell County had a one-acre minimum as part of its waste-disposal code, so it was dropped. Burnett County had only a small area within an hour's commute of Austin and the land there was all expensive, so it was dropped. Bastrop County remained, and had a number of real estate listings, no minimum acreage required, land prices in the $2,000-to-$3,000-per-acre range, and almost all of the county within an hour's commute of Austin. There were a couple of dozen real estate listings for undeveloped land in the range of ten-to-fifteen acres; we are pursuing these.

Deed restrictions turn out to be common in Texas (which has many areas with no building code) and these frequently disallow mobile homes or trailers or both. There are some properties with no restrictions. One such property had a contract for sale on it by the time a number of other questions had been resolved, so we made a contingent offer on that property. However, the original contract was satisfied, so our offer was not made. We plan to continue gathering deed restriction information and to examine properties that have come on the market since we began looking at Bastrop properties.

The following map shows the area near Austin, Texas which we are considering. The eastern half of Austin is at the left of the map. The total width of the map is 36 miles. The small towns in the area (from North to South) are Elgin, Bastrop, and Smithville. The eight locations of potential properties are shown by circles.

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Last modified: Tuesday, December 1, 1998

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