Chris and Jan Land Developers (Part 2)

So now that we have the lot clearing under way I started to deal with Manatee County Building Department which handles subdivisions.  The acreage was zoned for up to 6 residential units / acre so to divide 4.4 acres into 8 lots would appear to be a no brainer.  And that's exactly the problem - the people that came up with the land development code had no brains!

In order to subdivide we had to get a surveyor involved to survey and and to create the sub division plan to be submitted to the county.  Not sure how we found him but we ended up using Clements Surveying in Palmetto after interviewing a number of local engineering companies.  In some cases the engineering companies would not even call me back.  In a couple of other cases they would give an estimate of $30K or more.  These guys were reasonable and fair from the start.  Remember this is the tale end of the boom here and everyone was extremely busy.

Kim Holbrook at Clements Surveying was great and truly went out of her way to help.  Along the way we had a few delays getting the tract surveyed before we could even subdivide.  Jimmy Clements the owner must have contacted every surveyor that ever did work in Elwood Park to make sure he got it right and he did.  At the end of the day we did not want to worry about the property lines.  He swore he would never do work in Elwood Park again - I think he liked the challenge.

Throughout the process I dealt with a number of people at Manatee Planning Department and really learned a lot about creating a  subdivision.  Needless to say there are countless rules and regulations as outlined in the Manatee County Land Development Code and plowing through the code was an education unto itself.  Luckily we fell into the Minor subdivision realm as outlined below:

902.1.1. Minor subdivision shall mean any residential subdivision containing less than eleven (11) lots or parcels of land; and does not include any type of non-residential subdivision. The minor subdivision shall front on an existing public street or private street built to the current Manatee County Development Standards; and which meets the following three (3) requirements:



1.Not involving the establishment of a new street;
2.Not involving the extension of any public facility mains within the rights-of-way and creation of any new general public improvements involving the review or approval of construction drawings, as determined by the Planning Department excluding individual lot service connections; and
3.Not in conflict with any provision of the Comprehensive Plan, Land Development Code, Building Code or other officially adopted plans, policies or regulations.

Basically what this meant is that if I built a road I was screwed and would fall into the major subdivision category which meant more government. 

In order to get things moving with the county a Land Development Application needed to be completed and submittted along with a multitude of attachments.  Now bear in mind this is not just any application. And the Application only came after a completness review and meetings with the county.  In order to subdivide we also needed to rezone and the county wanted to retstrict the lot size to 1 acre which meant the zoning went from RES6 to A1 (Agricultural - 1 unit /acre).  They also wanted to take right of way on the street which amounted to 0.1 Acre. 

Here's a copy of the transmittal page to the county.  Notice the number of copies of the application thats needed - 18!  Welcome to government! and what I learned was that those copies were needed for at least 16 different government departments to review.  No wonder it takes so long to get anything done anymore..

More in Part 3 - Chris Amstutz the Developer..















The waiting