But at the very least you should start with an feasibility study on a specific piece of property and then engage a civil engineer and architect early on.

This thread is in the Canadian Real Estate Forum, which generally only engages investors from Canada.

I think you're going to either need to engage an attorney for review (best), build some non-attorney contacts who can comment on whether or not it seems customary (better), or just risk it (first, of course, trying to understand the full scope of the risk). 

I am also engaged, a first time home buyer, and I will be house-hacking.

In reviewing the legal docks leading up to the foreclosure, there were numerous attempts by the association attorney to contact HUD without success nor did HUD engage in legal avenues of their own.

UNLESS you specifically engaged them by the hour to go through your contracts and advise on all aspects of it. 

It might be the right time for you to engage in investing.

I currently own two properties, one is my primary residence with about 200k in equity and another is great grandmother's house which is paid off and worth about 285k ( appraisal done less than a month ago) I am engaged to be married and it is my goal to create enough passive income through real estate to eventually cover the 6k intended mortgage on our dream home.

Stay engaged in the RE and BP communities to network and learn.

The next step it seems is to go through the re-zoning process and to engage with our bank about splitting the land, which I'm working through now.