Multi-Parcel sale has 4 Parcels but only 2 Lots

[Ben Raeder]

I recently acquired some land in a multi-parcel sale. When we went under contract this was advertised as a 4 parcel sale, and in the public parcel viewer we could plainly see it is 4 parcels and has 4 tax PINs and Parcel numbers. The parcels were a little small and uneven in width so the plan was to merge 4 parcels into 3 evenly subdivided lots. During our due diligence we attempted to get as close as we could to the subdivision with the county and worked with someone from zoning to get a written approval which could be used to formalize the subdivision as soon as we owned the property. Everything was going along well until the day before we were going to close and the guy from zoning was supposed to finalize our written approval. He looks in the official records office and tells us out of the blue that even though there are 4 parcels there are only 2 lots?!? This has now driven a need for an approval and variance from the county to subdivide like we wanted. This was surprising to the seller, the zoning guy, and my builder who has done many subdivision in the past, no one involved has ever seen a single official lot have 2 parcel numbers. 

Has anyone run into this before and is it common or standard anywhere to have a single official lot have multiple parcel numbers? To me I always thought a parcel is a lot, there's no difference so I'm very confused here and I cant find any traces online of a similar scenario, thus me reaching out here. 

We have applied for the variance and we want to properly provide "unique circumstances" which justify the variance being granted, and my instinct here is the "unique circumstances" that would set us apart from other similar subdivision requests is this 4 parcel/2 lots situation which seems like it could be a mistake from the years past.

Any thoughts or advice would be amazing. Thanks in advance!