How Can You Subdivide Land in North Carolina

North Carolina Land Expert and Broker Eric Andrews discusses dividing land. This is a question which often pops up when someone is considering subdividing land or selling a piece of their land to a potential buyer. Factors and restrictions which affect dividing land: – Is the property on a public or private road? – Do you have county water or is it on a private well? – Is there municipal sewer or is it on a private septic? There are exemptions, such as creating lots over 10 acres, however, not all lots are buildable, especially here in Chatham County, North Carolina.

Speaker 1:           How can somebody subdivide their land?

Speaker 2:           Well, first you got to figure out, can you? And there’s some key questions that you need to ask. Is it on a private or public road, that is really, really relevant because if your land is on a private road… you know somebody that lives on a private road? If they’re on a private road, only four lots less than 10 acres can be served by a private road. So that is one of the restrictions.

Do you have county water or is it going to be a private well? If it’s county water greater likelihood, you can subdivide. You have a 40,000 square foot minimum, if it’s some kind of municipal water source. If it is served by a well, then we have an acre and a half minimum. And then the be all end all, the most important thing in the universe in the United States, do we have municipal sewer or is it on a private septic?

And so that’s the game changer, but sewer you can probably divide it up a gazillion ways. But if it’s private septic, there are limitations that limitations based on the soil and the lot size.

And then one of the exemptions for all of these private road, public road and septic or whatnot, is if it’s more than 10 acres, 10.01 acres, then it’s exempt from subdivision ordinances. And so you could have, if the piece of land were big enough, you could have one-hundred 10 acre lots served by a private load.

There’s no limitations on how many lots can be served by a private road, but there could be a limitation. You could sell someone a dead 10 acre lot. You could sell someone accidentally an unbuildable 10 acre lot because of water protection in the area. You could have a perennial stream with a buffer. You could have an intermittent stream with a buffer. You could have wetlands, and then you could have setbacks from the boundary of the property. And you could actually, it’s possible, and I’ve seen it, you could have, believe it or not 10 football fields. So a ten acre lot that doesn’t have a buildable home site on the property. It is possible.

So don’t paint yourself into a corner, but those are some of the key questions you have to ask yourself. Sewer, septic, well, municipal water, public road frontage, private road. And then of course the zoning and we can see what the limitations are.