Costs
Part of Location selection as research: labor, data, and site visits
6 things to weigh up on location selection rules
The location selection rules that carry a price, from parking minimums to utility capacity and stormwater, with the office to ask for each at one address.
A location is priced by rules as much as by rent. Where you may park, how late you may load, whether you may put up a sign, how the property is assessed for tax, and what the utilities can deliver: each is set by someone other than the landlord. Each turns into money.
This page sets out the six location selection rules that carry a price and says who to ask for each one at a specific address.
No amounts appear here. Every rule below is local, and any figure printed today would be wrong for your street. What is stable is the list of questions, the form each rule takes in the ordinance, and the way it turns into a cost line, and those are what each item below gives you.
What to take away
- The rules that cost you money are set by several bodies, none of which is the landlord and none of which coordinates with the others.
- Ask each question at a specific address. A rule for the municipality is not a rule for the parcel, because districts and overlays differ inside one town.
- Get the answers in writing before you shortlist, because after you sign they become the budget rather than a choice.
The six things to weigh up
1. The use rule. Whether your activity is permitted at that address. The general framework for how this is decided is described under zoning, and the answer comes from the local land use office, reading your activity against the use table in the zoning ordinance. Where the use is not listed, the route runs through a use permit, a conditional use permit, or a variance, each an application with its own review. Everything else on this page is irrelevant until this one is settled. The wider method is in zoning and permits.
2. Performance standards and hours. Noise at the boundary, lighting, odor, dust, and when vehicles may come and go. These sit in the performance standards section of the same ordinance and are enforced by the code enforcement office. A permitted activity with a prohibited shift pattern is not permitted. In the ordinance these usually read as a noise limit in decibels measured at the property line, set separately for day and night, and as delivery or operating hours for districts next to housing. The cost is acoustic screening, a later shift, or a different address.
3. Parking and loading minimums. Set by the zoning ordinance for your district and checked at site plan approval: the number of spaces the use table requires, plus loading berths and how trucks get in and out. You pay for it as pavement you build or spaces you lease nearby, and falling short means a variance application. The ratio is usually written as spaces per thousand square feet of floor area, or per employee on the largest shift, and accessible spaces are counted separately under the ADA Standards for Accessible Design.
4. Signs, screening, and outdoor storage. Sign area, height, and placement come from the sign code and are approved through a sign permit; screening of yard storage is frequently its own line in the use table. A sign smaller than the one you planned costs you visibility rather than fees. Sign codes commonly tie the permitted sign area to the length of the building's street frontage, so measure the frontage of each candidate unit before you compare them.
5. Stormwater and utility capacity. Runoff from a yard or a parking area is regulated locally, and the capacity answer comes from the utility that serves the parcel, not the one that serves the area. The local stormwater ordinance sits under the Clean Water Act's permit system and usually sets a threshold of new paved or disturbed area above which a stormwater management plan is required; for utilities, ask for the available water pressure and flow, the sewer capacity and the electrical service size at the parcel, because an upgrade is paid by whoever needs it.
6. Property assessment and business licensing. The assessing authority for the county, usually the assessor or the appraisal district, sets the value the tax bill is built on, and the municipal licensing office sets what you must hold to open: a business license, a certificate of occupancy, and any health or fire approval your use triggers. A change of use can also trigger a reassessment of the property or a new certificate of occupancy inspection, and either can send building work back into the budget.
Who sets each rule, and what it costs you
| Rule | Who sets it | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Parking and loading minimums | Municipality | Space you must provide or pay for, or an application if you cannot |
| Signage consent | Municipality, sometimes a design committee | Fees, professional time, and weeks of a blank shopfront |
| Property assessment | The local assessing authority | A recurring charge, whether you pay it directly or through the lease |
| Business licensing | Municipality or state, by activity | Fees and a timetable before you can open |
| Utility capacity and connection | The utility, not the landlord | The largest single surprise on an industrial or food operation |
| Waste and recycling requirements | Municipality | A recurring service you may not choose |
| Stormwater management | Local, under a federal framework | Engineering on any site with a yard or a large paved area |
| Access and highway consent | The transport authority | Sometimes an assessment, sometimes a physical alteration |
The stormwater row surprises people. The national framework behind the local rule is the NPDES stormwater program. On a site with any significant hard surface, ask early, and ask about capacity at the same time.
Rules about what the place will become
A location is a bet on the next several years, and some of what will change is already documented.
- The adopted plan for the area, usually the comprehensive plan, which says what the municipality intends to encourage. The EPA's smart growth pages are a reasonable primer on the vocabulary these documents use.
- Applications pending nearby for a rezoning, a variance, or a site plan, which are public and which you can ask to see at the planning department.
- Planned transport works. The federal traffic monitoring program at travel volume trends shows how national patterns are measured, and your state department of transportation and the regional planning organization hold the local counts and the planned schemes.
- Whether any land near you is subject to acquisition for a public project, which operates through eminent domain and is worth asking about rather than discovering.
Rules that protect an existing situation, until they do not
A building used in a way current rules would not allow may be protected as a nonconforming use. That protection is limited: it usually attaches to the specific use, can lapse after a period of vacancy, and often cannot be expanded.
Never buy or lease assuming a long-standing arrangement is permanent. Ask what the protection covers and what would end it.
How to get the answers for one address
- Find the parcel on the municipality's map, usually the planning department's or the assessor's parcel viewer, and note the district and any overlay.
- Read the use table, the performance standards, and the parking rules for that district in the zoning ordinance.
- Email the land use office, the planning or zoning department, with your activity described honestly, naming the address.
- Email the fire authority with what you store and how you operate.
- Ask the utility what capacity is available at the property, not in the area.
- Ask the assessing authority how the property is currently assessed and when it was last reviewed.
- Ask the planning department what applications are pending nearby and what the adopted plan says.
Seven questions. Most of them are free. The general starting point the SBA publishes on picking a business location is a reasonable checklist to read alongside them.
Turning the answers into a cost
Take each answer and give it a number, even a rough one, then put the numbers beside the rent for each candidate. A cheaper address with a parking shortfall, a signage committee and a utility upgrade is not cheaper.
The method for comparing locations honestly is in location selection; the occupancy side of the same model is in commercial leasing. Where the answers point at building something rather than adapting, the cost buckets are in tenant improvements.
Common questions
Do these rules change often?
Some do and some do not, and the ones that matter most to you are usually the slowest to move. Confirm the current position for your address rather than relying on anything published generally, including this page.
Can I get an incentive for locating somewhere?
Sometimes programs exist, and they are specific to a place and a period. Most run through the state economic development office or the municipal redevelopment agency, and a designation often sits underneath them, whether a state enterprise zone or a federal opportunity zone. Ask the municipality or the state economic development office directly, and read the program's own terms rather than a description of them.
Who is responsible for finding all this out?
You are. No other party in the transaction carries the consequence of getting it wrong, which is the whole argument for asking early.
What if two offices give me different answers?
Write to both, quoting the other, and ask them to reconcile it. That is a normal request, and getting it resolved in writing before you commit is worth more than any amount of rent negotiation.
