Land Clearing for a Development

Hi,

I am in negotiations for a site which has 2.5 hectres of land clearing (tree/scrub removal) required. Attached is a draft subdivision plan layout for the site which I prepared, and some pics around the site showing the vegetation. In some parts of the site the vegetation is thick scrub with the occasional larger tree, while in other parts the trees are more significant and predominant. The areas required for clearing are shown in red on the sub plan.

I have spoke to a couple of tree removal/land clearing companies, who have suggested pulling and clearing all the trees into a big pile and burning them, or turning them into wood chips. Given the large number of decent sized trees that will be removed I am wondering if there is another way to use these trees. It seems such a shame to burn them or turn them into chips, are there any other options which could be explored?

@Westminster - I saw you commented on tree removal on a thread recently, do you have any guidance?

 

Looks massive. Hope you update this project. I'll follow with interest.

 

Good to see the foreperson and project manager walking the site

Most of that scrub is pretty much worthless and mulching is probably the best option. The larger trees, I had some luck years ago with getting someone interested taking old growth blue gum forest but the trees were in excess of 1 m girth & 20-30m tall , so a bit of a ring around to the local mill. If it's a popular species you may have more luck (turpentine, brushbox, blackwood etc).

 

Thanks @Scott No Mates, so basically we could clear all the smaller stuff, and then leave the larger trees for a mill. Thanks I will look into that.

Haha, yes the little ones certainly do run the show!

@Sackie - happy to go into detail after we get a permit and if the JV partners are happy for it to be public. But just quickly, its a very pretty site, and the lots have bushland style views. However, the site has significant constraints (cultural heritage issues - aboriginal and an old tramway, vegetation removal controls, bushfire management issues, erosion overlay, potential fauna and flora issues, it has a development plan overlay which adds an extra planning control that needs to be satisfied before a permit can be applied for, drainage issues, significant civil construction costs and requirements (about 50% extra costs then a standard residential land sub), drainage issues with ******ing basins, sewerage issues - possible rising main/pump etc). Basically its a very involved site, so its a 50/50 for me at the moment, just building up the feasibility to see where it lies.

 

That's more than a handful of challenges to overcome. I can only imagine trying to get somewhat accurate numbers on the initial feasibility would be a saga and a half. All the best with it and thanks for posting.

 

What an interesting development - following!

I thought I had fun with council with my few protected trees, sewer main extension and other challenges....this is awesome

 

As per the others, the scrubby stuff will be easily cleared and then you have some choices

1. Can the larger trees be kept as isolated trees and not negatively impact on civils, Bushfire Attack Levels and building envelopes.
2. Is the wood valuable and can be sold?
3. Do you have a local place that will take them (or possibly buy them) for firewood
4. Chip them and use them in landscaping

It is actually very hard to keep any trees in a subdivision as levels might need to be raised/lowered, trenches for infrastructure need to be dug to service each lot, bushfire levels managed etc and they might be diseased etc.

Some days it truly is the path of least resistance to go full scrape and then put in street trees at the end especially if you can encourage trees which will help in the case of a fire Fire ******ent Trees.

 

Very interesting development. So many issues to overcome but looking forward to the updates.

 

Yes the feasibility process is pretty involved for this one. I have been building a land development based feasibility for the last 6 months or so. For my day job I work in a small suburban surveying/engineering/planning firm, we do a range of tasks (whatever comes through the door), but we are lucky we get quite a few jobs that are in rural/regional areas between 2 lotters to 50 lotters. So I have actuals from other jobs to compare my feasibility spreadsheet to. As a part of this process I have been updating our firms feasibility spreadsheet as well. Before I was a surveyor I was a CPA (accountant), working in reporting for large companies, so its actually quite fun to dust off the excel skills.

I wont provide my spreadsheet to anyone, i cant tell you how many hours i have spent on it (possibly 100?), but happy to give a quick description of how I assign costs below.

The spreadsheet is about 80-100 line items which need to be accounted for. Probably not so dissimilar to other peoples building based spreadsheet, while a building one uses sqm rates, this one uses other methods. For the civils there are general rates depending on certain things, for example, what road reserve width is required? 14m, 16m, etc, the width can be determined by the expected traffic use (the use or number of people using the road is applied based on the number of lots that use the road for access) and is provided for in the planning scheme and also engineering documents, like the one attached. The costs for other items such as NBN/telecommunications are assigned on a per lot basis.

Most of the spreadsheet is automated as much as possible, some sites I have been doing a sub design, assessing the planning/engineering requirements and preparing a quick feasibility in an hour or so. This one is taking a lot longer as there is a lot of 'extras' that require phone calls or research to get answers.

Attached is the latest version of the sub plan. The one I posted originally was my first draft from about a week ago, I am up to the 4th now. The lot design has been updated to account for using the roads as natural fire buffers. The site is on a hill with a lot of nearby vegetation. Building envelopes will be required on the sub plan and assessment by a bushfire specialist to assess the risk of bushfire attack. There will need to be a defendable space of likely between 20-30m between the building envelopes and the remaining vegetation, when the roads are along the line of vegetation they help with this barrier. (this is in line with what @Westminster was talking about yesterday). Also thank you for the link to fire ******ing trees, that is something I will be looking into more.

I found a contour plan of part of the site that someone has prepared at some stage and superimposed it over my design. With this a rough sewer design (shown as the red line on the attached sub plan) can be created for the site (i am not an engineer so its pretty rough at the moment - I pretty much just create lines on a plan that go downhill - maybe I am an engineer). The biggest risk for the sewer costs is whether a pump/rising main will be required to get the sewerage from the lower eastern half of the site to the western side where all the existing services are. The rise and fall of the site may allow it to get over naturally without a pump or it may not. I probably wont know the outcome until I do a survey and a full engineering design is done. With the mock design I can fill in the feasibility spreadsheet for sewer and drainage. Different rates need to be applied depending on expected pipe sizes, whether its in the road reserve (requires a crushed rock back fill which is about 3-4 times more expensive) or at the rear of the lots or in an open area (normal backfill - much cheaper). While the drainage design will be different, i assume the sewer and drainage will be the same for the feasibility for this site.

Water rates can be assigned based on the road length as it doesn't need to account for fall. Other services I assign based on the number of lots (tele/NBN, electricity, street trees, electricity (a sub station may also be required), authority headworks). 10% contingency required.

Authority contributions are a big one for land development, as they are generally based on a hectre amount. Luckily this site is not in a melb water catchment/contributions area, as their contributions can be 100k+ per hectre, and where this site is 14ha it can make a pretty big dent in the feasibility.

Consultant costs such as surveying/planning etc can be assigned based on a lot basis or % of expected construction works costs.

Legals/selling/marketing/accounting/titling etc can be assigned similar to building based feasibilities.

A lot of the feasibility can be prepared in a way that is close to the actual costs (within 10% or so), but until a full engineering design is done it is never known.

I have heard of others doing a standard 55k-65k per lot for the civils, having done about 40-50 feasibilities this year, I can tell you this is fraught with danger. If its an easy site with standard lot sizes then that range is pretty close. But for sites such as this one, the civils are closer to 100k per lot. The larger amount is also due to the larger lot sizes for the site, which means more civils are required on a per lot basis. All up there is about 1.2km of road required, which is the biggest civil cost.

For this site I will be doing the surveying and planning, and my boss will be doing the engineering, so the consultant costs can be managed a bit. I have also just gone part time in my day job, which should help with this a lot. I am only looking at joint venture style arrangements with landowners at the moment. In the future I will be considering JV's with money partners as well to buy sites.

Its a lot of fun, preparing sites and investigating. I think I like this one so much because its so involved and has so many constraints. An easy one would be boring.

 

Wish you all the best with it mate, looks like a monster project. Any rough proft estimates yet?

 

Thanks @Sackie. I have found the returns v risk suit me better in land development rather than building construction developments, as i have a lot more control (i can do the planning for a subdivision, whereas would need to hire someone for construction related planning) and can add value through my day job.

The profit over costs for the sites i have been looking at are between 30 - 40%. This one is in the upper half of that range.

 

Your knowledge in this space will provide some great opportunities I'm sure. If its a passion of yours as well then its a no brainer. Over time you'll refine your approach, optimise it and benefit from the challenges faced like above. Maybe even some sneaky pieces of advice from some seasoned veterans in the forum that could save $$$.

 

Mate couldn't agree with you more. I am a consultant that has knowledge in a couple of the areas of land development, while all the other areas I am learning from on here and other outside research/ meetups. Property chat is amazing due to the people on here sharing their knowledge freely. I don't comment a heap, but read it daily.

I am now speaking to realestate agents to try to find sites, but for the first 3-4 months I was letter dropping/cold calling sites that ticked my boxes (good planning/limited site constraints etc). Myself and dad spent every weekend visiting sites and knocking on doors, preparing sub designs and feasibilities. I got a lot of no's and maybe's. I am glad I went through it but it started to affect my mindset. To help get my mindset back on track I sat down with a mate of mine who has a pretty successful business that he has built over the last 4-5 years. In a 3 hour session he transformed my thought patterns, gave sales technique advice and he is also making me accountable (he gave me homework and wants to meetup in a month or two to go over it). He has basically become my mentor for certain parts of my business. I cant believe how helpful it has been.

I am sure all the business owners on this forum can relate to the trials and tribulations of trying to start a business, and the importance of mentors. I am also on the lookout for a seasoned land developer who is willing to chat/meetup occasionally.

 

That's awesome you can reflect and appreciate where you were vs where you are now. I'm in a similar boat looking for mentors and accountability partners (both professionally and through injury rehab). We can achieve so much more by sharing and leveraging others. I also haven't posted regularly but I read every post. Starting to post more now as it helps sharpen the mind and engage with others who have so much to give.

 

Struck gold mate. I've always believed the value of a good mentor who is willing to mentor you without agenda is the absolute Gold standard of guidance and can dramatically speed up your goals attainment and greatly reduce your risk. Very, very, very hard to meet someone like that.

Good on you.