A key strategy behind Shopoff Realty Investments is our ability to add value to real estate through securing land use entitlements that allow properties to be developed. Land use entitlements are approvals from local municipalities as well as State and Federal agencies. Some examples of land use entitlements include:
- Approval of a subdivision map to allow a large property to be subdivided into residential building lots;
- Changing the zoning of an industrial property to residential to allow for residential uses on a property that has been used for industrial purposes;
- Specific Plans or Planned Community Developments where site-specific zoning is put in place to provide for flexibility and zoning that is tailored to a larger property;
- General Plan Amendments, conditional use permits, and resource agency permits.
- Environmental review of the proposed project including traffic studies, water and sewer studies, air quality, and other potential impacts associated with development.
During the entitlement process, our team of engineers, land planners, architects, legal counsel and other experts will develop a design for development of the individual properties. This involves a plan for how streets and lots are laid out, preliminary architecture to show the local municipality what the new homes will look like, along with the supporting technical studies required to secure the approvals.
Land use entitlements are typically discretionary actions that require approval of the local planning commission and/or city council through a vote of that governing body. This approval process is a risk that most homebuilders will not undertake, which creates and opportunity for SRI to purchase real estate, secure entitlements and then sell the real estate with the entitlement approvals to a homebuilder who can then go and develop the site and sell homes.