I’m looking to purchase a small plot of land in the northwest (northern California, Oregon, or Washington) with the plan to not build for at least 5 to 10 years.

The areas I’m interested in are typically pine forests, either adjacent or very close to national forests or parks. I’m not trying to disappear into the wild; I’m more likely to buy land that has already been broken up into rural lots (1 to 5 acres) that are in the path of future low density development.

There are countless questions to come about utilities, etc. but this one concerns leaving the land vacant for 5 or 10 years. I hope to pay cash, so the terms of any loan would not require me to build in a limited number of years. And I probably won’t be buying a lot in an active development, that might also have some sort of ‘build now’ requirements.

So, I’ve got a small plot of land with no intention to build for several years. But I want to do what I can to make some progress prior to construction. I’ve been thinking about what kind of work makes sense in this 5 to 10 year period.

With more than an acre of land, the building site will only take up a small part of the lot, so I can probably outline the building footprint, and a wide border for construction access, laydown, utility trenches, etc. (including a generous path along the intended driveway, out to the property line.) The rest of the lot can be safely ‘improved’ without any risk of impacting future construction.

Some possibilities:

• Planting trees and other large plants that will benefit from a 5 to 10 year head start. I could arrange for a local lawn care company to provide watering and other maintenance as needed.

• Planting a ‘living fence’ of either some type of hedge, or a perimeter of pine trees just inside the property line to define the borders of the lot. (when the house is eventually built, I might fence in the small area around the house (100ft x100ft?) to keep the dogs in and critters out, but I want the overall lot to be open to wildlife. Buy the time the house is built, the border should have grown in nicely.

• One very thorough clean-up, then yearly follow-ups. As the land will be within a few miles of town, its hard to imagine any forest land without fifty years worth of beer cans, an old Rambler wagon, a shopping cart or two, etc. In addition to the man-made junk, that first effort should remove the worst of the natural stuff – fallen trees, especially the ones still leaning on an adjacent tree and just waiting for a good wind to send it crashing down, just an overall one-time clean-up to make sure there are no bodies under all those leaves and twigs. That first year might be a major effort, but I could probably complete the later year efforts with two guys in an afternoon.

• Outside of the actual building site, any significant changes to elevation / land contours. Time is the best way to settle grade changes, but I hope the land will not require much grading, other than the house site.

• Work on any labor intensive projects, like a stone wall or other back-breaking work. Some projects do not lend themselves to multi-year schedules, but others are well-suited to open-ended time frames.

• I even thought about something like a flagstone patio with stone fireplace / barbecue, located a good distance away from the building site. It would give us a place for a nice cookout after a weekend spent clearing junk off the property. But this would be an extremely inviting feature for local kids. (“keg party at the fire pit!”) Cleaning up after intoxicated children, and potential liability issues made me see the downside to this idea.

• Having the lot in this ‘semi-improved’ state might make it easier for me to take advantage of any opportunities to get utilities installed as developers (or the local town, or municipal utilitiy) brings lines through the area.

In a small suburban lot, where the building footprint takes up more than half of the land, any advance work will just cause your building contractor headaches when he eventually starts work. But when the house footprint is just a small corner of the lot, it seems like you could make some significant progress in the 5 to 10 years prior to home construction
Has anyone done anything like this? What lessons did you learn?