Land Development Methods - Printable Version

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Land Development Methods - Manish Jain - 11-11-2018

Land Development Methods

Land development refers to altering the landscape in any number of ways like changing landforms from a natural or semi-natural state for a purpose such as housing or subdividing real estate into lots, typically for the purpose of building homes.


Real estate development, or property development, is a multifaceted business, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of improved land or parcels to others. Real estate developers are the people and companies who coordinate all of these activities, converting ideas from paper to real property. Real estate development is different from construction, although many developers also manage the construction process.



Economical Aspects


Landowner or developers on any size of project will often want to maximize profits, minimize risk and control cash flow. This "profit enhancement", means identifying and developing the best scheme for the local marketplace, whilst satisfying the local planning process. Development Analysis puts development prospects and the development process itself under the microscope, identifying where enhancements and improvements can be introduced. These improvements aim to align with best design practice, political sensitivities, and the inevitable social requirements of a project, with the overarching objective of increasing land values and profit margins on behalf of the landowner or develope



Conversion of landforms

Land development puts more emphasis on the expected economic development as a result of the process; land conversion tries to focus on the general physical and biological aspects of the land use change. "Land improvement" in the economic sense can often lead to land degradation from the ecological perspective. Land development and the change in land value does not usually take into account changes in the ecology of the developed area. While conversion of (rural) land with a vegetation carpet to building land may result in a rise in economic growth and rising land prices, the irreversibility of lost flora and fauna because of habitat destruction, the loss of ecosystem services and resulting decline in environmental value is only considered a priori in environmental full-cost accounting.



1.Conversion to building land

Conversion to building land is as a rule associated with road building, which in itself already brings topsoil abrasion, soil compaction and modification of the soil's chemical composition through soil stabilization, creation of impervious surfaces and, subsequently, (polluted) surface runoff water.

Construction activity often effectively seals off a larger part of the soil from rainfall and the nutrient cycle, so that the soil below buildings and roads is effectively "consumed" and made infertile.
With the notable exception of attempts at rooftop gardening and hanging gardens in green buildings (possibly as constituents of green urbanism), vegetative cover of higher plants is lost to concrete and asphalt surfaces, complementary interspersed garden and park areas notwithstanding.




2. Conversion to farmland

New creation of farmland will rely on the conversion and development of previous forests, savannas or grassland. Recreation of farmland from wasteland, deserts or previous impervious surfaces is considerably less frequent because of the degraded or missing fertile soil in the latter. Starting from forests, land is made arable by asserting or slash-and-burn.

Because the newly created farmland is more prone to erosion than soil stabilized by tree roots, such a conversion may mean irreversible crossing of an ecological threshold.

The resulting deforestation is also not easily compensated for elsewhere, because plantations of other trees, often as monocultures, as a rule lack the biodiversity of the lost forest.



3.Subdivision is the act of dividing land into pieces that are easier to sell or otherwise develop, usually via a plat. The former single piece as a whole is then known in the United States as a subdivision. If it is used for housing it is typically known as housing subdivision or housing development, although some developers tend to call these areas communities.

Subdivisions may also be for the purpose of commercial or industrial development, and the results vary from retail shopping malls with independently owned out parcels, to industrial parks.



4. Restoration
Examples of land restoration counted as land development in the strict sense are still rare. However, reforestation, stream restoration may all contribute to healthier environment and quality of life, especially in densely populated regions. The same is of course true for planned vegetation like parks and gardens, but restoration plays a particular role, because it reverses previous conversions to built and agricultural areas.

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