The Third Rule of Thumb and Understanding City Requirements!

Whenever you are evaluating a property for a conversion or new construction, you need to understand that the city has some basic requirements that they are going to check before they sign off on your property. While this isn’t everything that your city will require, these are a few things that you may not think about before you approach your city.

While traffic flow may not seem like a big deal to you, the number of cars that are on the road every day is a big deal to the city. Roads can only handle so much traffic before they have to be expanded, repaired, or even replaced. Cities have to budget for these expenses and as a result, they watch the number of cars closely.

So how does this affect your project? If you are planning on building a self-storage facility on a property where the road is already overtaxed, they may not be willing to let you build because you will add additional strain. They may even be considering widening the road and the property you are considering is part of the road expansion. Make sure that you research the traffic on the roads around the property that you are considering before you invest to much money into the property only to find out the city won’t let you build.

Another factor that you need be aware of is the Area Coverage Ratio. Each city limits the amount of square footage that you can put on an acre of land. If the city will only allow 18,000 square feet per acre of land, then you need to make sure that you have more than one acre of land. Find out what the ACR is before you close on your property.

Parking can be another hang up for a lot of cities. They want to have 1 parking space per 1000 square feet; sometimes they want even more. This means that if you built a 100,000 square foot self-storage facility, you would need 100 parking spaces. That is a lot of land that you would not be able to utilize as self-storage units. In reality, you should never need more than 3 or four spots in front of your facility. You need one for your manager and a few for potential renters. Your renters want to park as close to their unit or the elevator as possible. They don’t want to park out front. Get creative. Put parking spaces in front of each unit if you have to. Put in the parking that you need, but don’t waste valuable space.

When you are planning your conversion or new build or purchase, you need to look at even the most minute details to make sure that you will be able to do what you want to do. As always, happy investing.