Building multi-family home on non-conforming lot

[Jason Arvin]

Hi there! This is a longer post so let me apologize up front. My wife and I have been looking for our first multi-family home for about 18 months now. Our plan is to live in one unit and rent out the others. The catch of that though, is that when we move, we want to start fostering kids. That makes the selection all the more difficult because our unit needs to be big enough to support the 3 (or 4) of us and be in a moderately desirable area. We have found several options, but investors roll in with cash and we get steamrolled.

So now we’re trying to think outside the box. Someone from our church who is a realtor told us she has two plots of land for sale in an area we would like. However, they are non-conforming. The realtor has said there are hoops to jump through but hasn’t responded to any questions since, so I’m thinking she might not have a lot of knowledge around these kinds of situation, and understandably so.

Anyway, has anyone gone through the process before of converting the zoning to permit multi-family? And does anyone have any tips or suggestions of around this at all? We are doing our own research as well but I thought I’d throw it out there to people if anyone has been through it. Thank you so much!

Jason