I Found some Land!

**Craig Artzner** · 03-04-2009, 05:32 AM

And I may get it for free! My father-in-law has unofficially offered to give us 2 acres of wooded land at the back of his property for our new house. He has to clear up some minor zoning issues before he can hand it over but he's the head trustee in his township so it shouldn't be an issue.

Here's the land and layout:

The green line would be the driveway we would need to carve out. Anyone have a ballpark idea of how much the driveway should cost? Besides the well & septic, the driveway looks to be one of the biggest pre-construction tasks.

**Jenie0109** · 03-04-2009, 07:56 PM

Wow, free land! Good for you. Carving out a driveway is a tough job. Where is this located, by the way?

**tordon** · 03-04-2009, 09:04 PM

The zoning issue are horrible here in rural Alabama , land cannot be sold in less than 3 acre tracts unless bordering pavement.

**Craig Artzner** · 03-06-2009, 06:29 PM

Originally Posted by Jenie0109

Wow, free land! Good for you. Carving out a driveway is a tough job. Where is this located, by the way?

I live in Northeast Ohio, USA.

Originally Posted by tordon

The zoning issue are horrible here in rural Alabama , land cannot be sold in less than 3 acre tracts unless bordering pavement.

Yeah we have some zoning hurdles to jump through. The law states in order to build a house on this land, I must have access (on paper) to 50 feet of frontage (to a road). My father-in-law, through some exception back when he bought the land 30 years ago, only has 25 feet of frontage. You can see how the driveway is narrow as it meets the road.

But no worries, I just have to do is get an easement from one or more of my surrounding neighbors to say that, on paper, I can have access to 50 feet of frontage on their property that is adjacent to mine. But the beauty of it is that I won't infringe on their property at all, I just need the easement to get approved by zoning. This is what the zoning director told us, he said it's totally legit. And furthermore, the large parcel to the south of my property is a resort park owned by my family, so getting this easement should not be an issue.

**Craig Artzner** · 03-07-2009, 05:26 AM

Here's a satellite view image I made, overlaying the property lines.

**Jenie0109** · 03-11-2009, 10:25 PM

Hmmm.. that looks complicated.

**Craig Artzner** · 03-12-2009, 03:02 AM

Yeah it's a little complicated, but worth the trouble. We just got a quote for the house and land prep. Grand total of about $240K for everything, which is in our range.