Leveraging

conservation

to make homes

and businesses

more efficient,

desirable, and

valuable

CONSERVATION-MINDED
DEVELOPMENT DESIGN

Feasibility Analysis

Open Space Equity looks beyond the conventional subdivision paradigm to help landowners identify a particular property's true development potential. By planning thoughtfully, steering clear of important natural resources, employing innovative septic and stormwater management technologies, and making use of alternative regulatory frameworks, we help landowners find and make use of overlooked development potential.
 

Fieldwork Management

We assemble and manage teams of fieldwork professionals, including ecologists, engineers, soil scientists, and surveyors, with a view toward minimizing costs, expediting development design and the regulatory reviews, and minimizing landscape disturbances.
 

Often times, the best way to prevent opposition to new development is to proactively involve neighbors in the planning process. Open Space Equity can help you conduct charettes to identify community concerns, gather ideas, and create a development plan that meet your goals while responding to reasonable input from neighbors.
 

Conservation Site-Planning

We believe that all developments should include one or more significant conservation components, such as an open space set-aside, use of alternative energy sources, or energy-efficient construction. Open Space Equity can help you identify important resources on a property and develop and implement plans for conserving those resources in the context of your overall development goals. We can also help you evaluate and select new technologies and construction techniques for producing and conserving energy.
 

Development Site Planning

Open Space Equity specializes in designing site plans that maximize resource conservation, minimize site disturbance, and yield new construction that is visually and functionally compatible with its surroundings. Whether you're building a single house on a rural property, undertaking a residential subdivision, or considering a mixed-use development in a village center, we can help you develop a thoughtful plan achieves your goals while treading gently on the landscape.
 

Architectural Planning

In subdivisions and other developments that are constructed over time, it's often helpful to establish up-front standards and guidelines for how structures will be designed and built. In addition to fostering functional and aesthetic cohesion, good architectural planning can increase the value and desirability of property because it provides buyers with assurance that they won't find themselves living next door to structures unsuited to their context.
 

Land-Use Permitting

For better or worse, significant site design work often takes place during the regulatory review process, when land-use commissions may be inclined to request or require site plan modifications. Although we strive to anticipate and pre-empt regulatory surprises by planning carefully and holding preliminary discussions with appropriate land-use commissions, we also excel at achieving good site design results within the limitations of unexpected regulatory frameworks.
 

Construction Management

Once a development design has been finalized and approved by the appropriate regulatory entities, Open Space Equity can help you proactively manage the construction process.
 

Talk to us about how to make your development project innovative and successful.
 

Development
Considerations

• Conservation and development need not be mutually exclusive
  
• Your property may have more development potential than you realize
   
• Conserving a property's natural resources can enhance, rather than diminish, the profitability of a development
  
• Incorporating new technologies for generating and conserving energy can generate interest and command premium pricing
   
• Good planning is the key to success