Any environmental or community issues? 

Environmental matters of past owners can effect future uses.

I work in the environmental field and can appreciate the unseen costs in any remediation project. 

It is becoming a very popular movement and I like the concept of minimal debt, getting rid of unnecessary stuff and a small environmental footprint.

Boundary, easement, environmental test?

You may want to have the seller get an environmental test done as a condition of purchase and if it comes back negative offer to reimburse them at closing.

That said, when we examine a property with oil heat, we will budget the cost of converting it to either gas or electric in our offer analysis.Our reasons to move from oil are as follows:1) environmental and health liability of storing large quantities of fuel oil (essentially diesel) on-site.  

Even if your credit is pure poopy, commercial financing of some kind should be available with little to no hassles using 20% ($1m) down provided your LTC does not exceed 85-90% which I'm sure some pre-construction commitments/sales can overcome even if it is.Take your Feasibility Study, Market Analysis, City Approved Plans, Business Plan, Pro-Forma/Projections, Land Use Approval, Environmental Approval, Corp of Engineer Approval (as needed), Soil Sample Reports, Executive Summary, Builder Portfolio and either an Architect Rendering or Scale Model and march on down to the local bank.

I'm having trouble keeping up with the 100-pg "Housing & Environmental Standards" manual and its overactive "enforcement" in my zone!

Given the location, you might need a Phase I to check the potential for pollution or contamination of the soil and/or ground water.