How does a suburban housing develpopment come into existence? In the case of my novel, how do they go about buying the properties that already have houses and people on the land? How long does the process take?
Also, how is a developement governed, if at all (by the company that owns it?)
Thanks in advance!
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59,944 / 50,000
Nov 11, 2008 - 23 05
I've not done a development myself, but I can give you a basic idea of what I do know - and be aware that this is from the perspective of doing this in Australia. YMMV :)
Buying the properties is pretty much identical to buying a house that you want to live in - except that you are looking specifically for a row of properties for sale - or a *really big* property.
The person buying will also want to know that there is a reasonable chance of being allowed to *do* the development by the local (council/county/whatever is the local government of your region) . Thus they will investigate potential suburbs looking especially at ones that already have developments on them nearby, or, alternatively, will walk into the local council and ask them if they're likey to allow developments.
This process is helped along if the property has already been zoned for medium-high density housing. This is something that is also done by local government.
Once the purchasing company has decided on a property, actually buying the property itself will sometimes take a couple of months - depending on how much negotiation is involved with the seller. Note - the purchaser may have their eye on more than one set of properties - just in case one falls through.
In Australia, getting the permission to actually develop the property will require sumbission of a development proposal to the local council. This then has to be debated by the council - which can often take up to six-twelve months. It will generally take the full year if you need to actually rezone the property - and may fall through entirely (which means the purchaser has bought several properties that they then must sell because they can't do what they'd hoped).
By "governed" do you mean "how do they decide how to organise the project of developing it?" If so - that depends on the peopl. A company is just a bunch of poeple that decide to do something together that will make money... so it depends on why they're doing the development - how it's going to come about, who they're planning on selling to (eg to rich professional couples, or to large working families), how they're getting financed (do they have to get multiple bank loans to cover the costs involved, or do they have a wealthy investor (or two) that will finance the whole shebang - but wants a hefty percentage fo the profit)? etc etc. There are a million possible questions here... so I guess the question is: what are your story's requirements?