My first subdivision, 8-per acre. “Z-lots” a sort of shared driveway. One garage in the front, the other in the back. Minimum legal setbacks. Then I got to help on one that covered a square mile with a park, then another about half a mile away.
Again minimum legal 2-0 setbacks, 12 to the acre condos, 800 1000, and 1200 sf. .
They liked that, so more “Z-Lots” on a larger chunk of land so we could really optimize the concept. I was building four of them in 28-days, slab to C of O. Supers o other subdivisions were taking 6 to 8-weeks. Once I figured out that if you’re dried in, you can work all night and not get dinged for the noise ordinance, it was easy. You just give bonuses to the subs, and spend 8-hours a day on the phone herding the subs, and fourteen hours onsite. Somewhere in there the girlfriend decided she had enough. (If I ever decide I want another one, she will have grown up an a farm or ranch. They are much more understanding and used to dawn to dusk, and then some.)
They liked that so I got a four square mile project, a mix of z-lots and condos.
I started to feel like a nickle *****. I didn’t go to Engineering school to build tract homes. Felt there had to be something more meaningful.
Took a 65 to 70% cut in pay, and moved to central Idaho to design and build fish exclusion screens for irrigation diversions, to keep the salmon and steelhead in the river. Not nearly as lucrative, but I could sleep at night again.