Using conservation principles and technologies to make homes more efficient, responsible, and marketable

CONSERVATION-MINDED
DEVELOPMENT DESIGN

Feasibility Analysis

Open Space Equity looks beyond conventional subdivision paradigms 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 unconventional regulatory frameworks, we help landowners find and responsibly 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 controlling costs, expediting development design and regulatory reviews, and minimizing landscape disturbance.
 

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 meets 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 that 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 a 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 request or require site plan modifications. Although we strive to anticipate and pre-empt regulatory surprises through careful planning and pre-application discussions with land-use commissions, we also excel at achieving good site design results within the limitations presented by regulatory frameworks.
 

Construction Management

Once a development design has been finalized and approved by the appropriate regulatory entities, Open Space Equity can help you manage the construction process
to minimize environmental impacts and control costs. 

Talk to us about how to make your development initiative more cost-effective and environmentally responsible.
 

Some 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 price premiums
   
• Good up-front planning is the key to successful outcomes