Got to love developments in rural areas

[Hay Dude]

We have a 600-700 acre farm that the owners have been wanting to sell to a large area developer for about 3 years now. Rumored in the 10 million price range. Lots of lawn signs protesting the proposed development. We think the township government was against it, too. They slow walked everything, hoping a conservancy, or multi-millionaire would step up and buy it-keeping it farmland.
Well, dreams come true sometimes. After 3 years of applications, engineering, surveys, meetings and planning, the developers time ran out. When asked to re-submit applications, they stopped communicating (rumor is they were sensing a recession coming).
A local conservancy made a deal with the owner and the developer walked.
If the development went through, we would have gotten over 500 new plastic boxes (aka homes) and had to build a new school district. The roads which are already woefully small would have been overwhelmed with vehicles.

 

[ultrarunner]

Everything immediately around me either:

---- Floods, potentially to several feet deep. Roads flood for weeks at a time.
---- Is sloped too severe to build on.

There could be building sites a mile or more away, but I don't see how I will ever have immediate neighbors.

Some of the most expensive and sought after homes are steep downslope with no level yard...

The attraction from buyers is virtually zero landscape upkeep and views out of this world...

Several friends gave been building spec homes on steep downslope a for 40+ years.

By steep I mean navigating on all fours or a rope or steps...

 

[kenmbz]

In our old neighborhood with .5+ acres minimum, the neighbors all came from the city.
First thing they did was drop pesticides, since they didn't like the bugs.

For many years I can remember the lightning bugs coming up like a light carpet each late spring night.
Once these people moved in, barely saw any insects at all.
Funny part, is they never really spent any time outside anyway.

Here now we have 5 acre minimum, and no pesticide idiots (so far).
New house going up next month next door. First house in my immediate neighborhood in over 10 years.
And only one more open plot of land left across the street to go.

 

[MossRoad]

Some of the most expensive and sought after homes are steep downslope with no level yard...

The attraction from buyers is virtually zero landscape upkeep and views out of this world...

Several friends gave been building spec homes on steep downslope a for 40+ years.

By steep I mean navigating on all fours or a rope or steps...

We see this in the dunes along Lake Michigan's east coast. A couple parking places carved into the roadside, then sets of steep steps going up (or down) to the houses. A few even have little incline elevators next to the stairs.

 

[MossRoad]

....
Funny part, is they never really spent any time outside anyway.

...

When I was a kid, my dad's parents had a cottage on an island in a lake near here. Right around that time (the mid-late 70's), people started buying the fishing shacks, tearing them down, and building large homes on the mainland. And they'd put in built-in swimming pools. At the time, it was kinda funny, as the mindset of most people was "Why would you put in a swimming pool when you have a lake right there?"

Then we'd wade out into the lake, through the oily sheen from the 2-stroke outboards, and go swimming.

They didn't do e-coli testing back then, so who knows what we were swimming in with all of the cottages having septic systems.

 

[KennyG]

We see this in the dunes along Lake Michigan's east coast. A couple parking places carved into the roadside, then sets of steep steps going up (or down) to the houses. A few even have little incline elevators next to the stairs.

And they've messed up the shore by ill advised seawalls and rip rap, altering the erosion pattern. A few have fallen into the lake which makes for a great spectator event.

 

[deezler]

Do they not do periodic property re-assessments in Michigan? They do around here, in N.H. towns are required to re-assess every 10 years max.
Kinda sucks in a way if you've owned property for a long time but in reality it's more fair, not sticking a disproportionate amount of the tax burden on recent buyers.

Well my township assessing department claims they have the right to inspect your property every 5 years and do a reassessment. However my understanding is that this is just a basic inspection to see if their records are correct for your property (IE, did you build a new shed, porch, addition, etc) and not a re-evaluation of market value. And you do not have to allow them to enter your house (I feel like I need a gate on my driveway, too).

So if you haven't built any taxable stuff, then you stay at 3%/year.

 

[MossRoad]

And they've messed up the shore by ill advised seawalls and rip rap, altering the erosion pattern. A few have fallen into the lake which makes for a great spectator event.

When I was a kid back in the 60's and early 70's, my dad, who was an architect and construction specifications writer, would take us up along the Lake Michigan coast to take pictures of the houses that were falling into the lake. He'd study things like that every chance he would get.

 

[MossRoad]

Well my township assessing department claims they have the right to inspect your property every 5 years and do a reassessment. However my understanding is that this is just a basic inspection to see if their records are correct for your property (IE, did you build a new shed, porch, addition, etc) and not a re-evaluation of market value. And you do not have to allow them to enter your house (I feel like I need a gate on my driveway, too).

So if you haven't built any taxable stuff, then you stay at 3%/year.

Here, they use satellite images that are compared automatically from year to year to see if the footprint of the structure has changes, or any structures have been added.

 

[ultrarunner]

I've owned two homes on the same street next to each other.

One 1957 and the other 1993.

The difference in construction is night and day but home value very close per square feet...

1993 had 200 yards concrete in foundation... 1957 maybe 30 yards.

1993 has 40 piers 20-24' deep and 1957 none...

1993 sprinklered with 2x8 sheer walls throughout and triple pane windows...

1957 2x4 and no sheer walls and no insulation...

Much has changed over the years...