Site Suitability
Site suitability examines site characteristics such as slope, soil, and parcel size and shape, to understand if the site’s existing physical conditions require significant work to prepare a site for development. If significant sitework is needed, it will result in additional project costs. If you are considering multiple sites for your development, you may want to consider those that need less site work prior to construction and can meet other social and economic development factors (discussed in more detailed below) to help lower total development costs.
Physical factors
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Slope is the change in elevation on a site. In general, steeper slopes translate into additional time and effort to prepare the site for development (moving soil, building retaining structures, and adding infrastructure). Most site selection guidance recommends avoiding sites with slopes with a grade of 10 percent or higher, given the amount of earthwork needed to improve the site.
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Soil influences a range of factors for your development: ability to support overall development; ability to provide drainage; presence of sensitive ecological factors, such as wetlands. Soil surveys, like those available from the USDA or EPA, provide general soil conditions. In most cases, you will need to conduct onsite sampling and surveying to understand if a site’s soil can support your proposed development.
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Parcel size and shape influence how your development will look once built, including how it connects to its surroundings and how buildings will be configured on it. Parcel size and shape may affect your ability to achieve certain designs, such as being able to orient homes to a specific direction, cluster homes together, or reduce infrastructure costs.
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Natural or environmental systems on the site inform how your proposed development will interact with the natural world, as well as any negative impacts that your development could create to these systems.
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Environmental hazards or risks on the site will help you understand if your development will be located near environmental hazards, such as nonpoint source water pollution; ambient air pollution; or contamination, or if it will cause any of these hazards.
What Do Infrastructure Needs Look Like?
Source: GAO and Art Explosion (images)
Defining infrastructure
In recent years, infrastructure has taken a broad definition to encompass housing, healthcare, childcare and education. This part of the guide focuses on the physical infrastructure needed to support your development. While the need for infrastructure development exceeds the resources available, resources to fund infrastructure as part of your project exist through various federal agencies.
Common Infrastructure Needs
Water and sewer are an essential part of any project. On some sites, your project may require adding the appropriate infrastructure to your site and extending existing sanitation systems to your site to connect to the existing system. The costs associated with these improvements and connections can be costly, especially in more rural areas where these connections can span a large area. Additionally, cross-jurisdictional & cross-agency decision making; discrepancies with land ownership or right of way; and lack of authority to acquire rights of way can also create challenges to extend or connect with existing sanitation systems.
Related funding sources:
Development projects typically link up to existing utilities, including power grids. Some communities are connected to a reliable energy source, others may need improvements. As a result, your site may need to extend infrastructure to the to the closest energy source (such as having a transformer installed). Like other types of infrastructure, the cost to add or connect to existing energy sources and lack of authority to acquire rights of way can pose challenges.
You can consider onsite renewable energy sources paired with energy storage and energy efficiency measures, and explore ways to use local materials for your homes to minimize energy and resource needs. A local resource for this may be the Silver State Sustainable Home Certification, which can be used to award more points in a tax credit application.
Access to reliable telecommunication services, including broadband access, is part of the modern world and considerations for development. Extending broadband to rural areas, in particular, poses a challenge because of the high cost of extending and providing ongoing service in remote or rugged areas. Your project can explore ways to incorporate telecommunications to your site by seeking funding to support broadband connectivity to your project, as well as explore integration of distributed access points.
If your site lacks access to the existing road network, you may need to extend it or upgrade it if your project will result in additional traffic. You should work with community leaders who administered transportation funding to identify ways to coordinate with their available resources, which could help offset your costs, or opportunities to add transit service to your site.