Buildable lot
A buildable lot is one on which a structure can lawfully and practically be built. It is a conclusion drawn from several separate tests, and failing any one of them makes the others irrelevant.
The tests, all of which must pass#
Lawfully created. A lot of record, created through an approved subdivision or predating the requirement. A parcel divided informally by deed may not qualify.
Legal access. A recorded right to reach a public road. A driveway used with a neighbour's tolerance is not access.
Zoning and minimum lot size. The district must permit a dwelling and the parcel must meet the minimum area and width.
Setbacks. Front, side, rear, plus shoreland setbacks from the ordinary high water level where applicable, and separation distances from wells and septic systems. What remains after all of them is the buildable envelope, and on a small or oddly shaped parcel it can be nothing.
Septic feasibility, where there is no municipal sewer. Soil that will accept a system, in a location that meets the separation requirements, at a cost that makes sense.
Environmental constraints. Wetlands, floodplain, steep slopes, protected shoreland. Each can consume the part of the site that was otherwise usable.
The parcel number trap#
Having a parcel identification number and receiving a tax statement means the county is taxing the land. It does not mean the parcel is a lawful lot of record.
Those are different systems answering different questions, and a great many buyers of cheap rural land have taken the first as evidence of the second.
The planning office is the place to ask, and the question is precise: is this a lawfully created lot of record on which a dwelling can be permitted?
Why unbuildable parcels are cheap and stay cheap#
The economics are circular and they explain a large part of tax-forfeited inventory.
A parcel that cannot be built on has almost no use. It generates no return. Owners stop paying taxes on it. It forfeits. It goes into county inventory, where the same constraint that made the owner abandon it makes it hard to sell.
Buying one at a county land sale for very little is not a bargain. It is the market pricing something that cannot be used, and the buyer inherits the annual tax bill.
Where an unbuildable parcel is still worth buying#
As a side lot, by an adjoining owner. Combining it with a neighbouring parcel can make both more useful, and it puts the land back on the tax rolls with someone who has a reason to maintain it.
For access or buffer, where it solves a problem for property already owned.
Where the constraint is curable — access obtainable by easement, a septic site achievable with an alternative system. That requires establishing the cost before bidding rather than after.
Do the checks in order#
Access first, because nothing else matters without it. Then lawful lot status. Then zoning and size. Then septic. Then environmental.
Each is answerable before an auction, from public sources, in an afternoon.