It is important to consider the location of your chosen site. Know if it meets your particular needs. These needs include availability of facilities and communication, ease of transportation, if you travel a lot you may want to consider its proximity to airport or terminals. If you have business, you can want to consider things like vibrations, noise, odors that can cause disruptions. Identify what impacts the new location would have in your work force.

Make sure that your neighborhood is zoned as you anticipated. Check if your site is zoned properly as you intend it to be. There may be instances that you will need to apply for variances if it is not.

Information on an existing legal survey can be used to determine if the property is still suitable for your requirements. A survey addresses such matters as dimensions, boundary or property line, corner pins, right of way, and easements. It can also have information regarding its legal description, the structures on site and trees of relevance.

It is important to know existing topography of the site. Sometimes site is not level as it looks. It’s not a good idea if the adjacent properties drain towards your property. You also have to know if the site requires extensive clearing, a lot of cut and fill, and import and export of material, as these affect the cost. It is also significant to know if the site is lower than the road and if you need to fill it will the materials be locally available.

Ensure that your site have access necessary services such as water, sanitary, electricity, gas, and telephone. Check with local authorities whether the services are available within the property line as it can be very costly to connect across the road. You may also want to find out upfront charges involving connections and hoop-ups.

Your site may have already undergone environmental assessments whether phase 1 or phase 2. The important thing is, it has to be done. Ascertain who has to pay for the clean-up if there would be environmental concerns present on site.

Find out if there are archaeological or historical restrictions to the site. Or if there are conditions for approval, meet these conditions as sometimes an approval from the local or regional conservation authority is needed to build on your site.

Make sure that the structure of your dreams conforms with what the City/Town wants and easy to get approval from. Find out their concerns and restrictions and abide by them.

It’s good to know the fees involved in the development of your site. Check if there are development agreements if there are fees that have been prepaid. There are fees such as lot levies, and other “soft” costs.