What to do with property zoned light industrial?

[Bob Blackburn]

I have an opportunity to buy property zoned light industrial. The last sale occurred in 2004 for $310k. The current option to buy is 35k (for delinquent taxes).

Issues-there is a petroleum gasoline easement running through the property. They will allow a road to be built over the line, but that’s it. There are no sewer lines to the property, and it is going to be somewhat difficult to get water to the property.

The property is located next to railroad tracks and across the tracks from a large industrial facility. 

My thoughts on the property: rezone for manufactured housing park, or turn into an equipment storage yard. Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated on potential uses.   

[Michael Ablan]

@Bob Blackburn - Well.....you say getting water to the area is going to be difficult.  How difficult?  You can't expect to have housing if you can't get water/sewer to it.   It also doesn't sound the most attractive place for someone to want to settle down and live, given it's an industrial park (let alone if it's even possible to get the zoning variance)....I'd probably ditch that idea altogether.

Equipment storage sounds more feasible than anything, but you'll need to figure out if there's a demand for such a thing, and run a model on what you expect this to cost vs the revenue it could bring it.    At the end of the day, there's a reason no ones jumping on this thing.  You may want to spend a lot of time figuring out why that is.