From Parcel to
Occupied Homes
Six phases. Timelines vary by municipality and project size — the sequence does not. Here is what each phase actually involves, who has to say yes, and where projects most often stall.
Six phases.
Each phase has a decision point at the end of it. You should be able to stop at any of them without having spent money on the next one.
We pull the zoning ordinance text, the parcel record, the assessor data, and the utility as-builts. From that we produce a buildable-area analysis and a realistic unit count, plus the approval path each option requires — by-right, conditional use, or rezoning.
Decision point: whether this site supports enough units to justify the development cost. A meaningful share of the parcels we look at do not, and hearing that here costs you almost nothing.
Homes placed to scale against real setbacks, coverage limits, and open space requirements. Drive aisles, parking, fire access, and utility routing shown. This is the drawing you bring to a pre-application meeting — detailed enough for staff to react to, loose enough to change cheaply.
Decision point: whether the plan that fits the ordinance is a project you want to build.
A sit-down with planning, zoning, engineering, and fire before anything is formally filed. This meeting is the single highest-leverage hour in the whole process. Staff tell you what they'll object to, what conditions they'll attach, and what they've made other applicants do on comparable sites. It is also where we open the infrastructure cost conversation — what the city is willing to fund, waive, or defer. Ask once the plan is approved and the answer is almost always no.
Where projects stall: skipping this. Filing cold means discovering the fire department's turning-radius requirement in round two of plan review, after the drawings are finished.
Formal site plan submittal with full application materials and narrative. Where the format requires it: conditional use permit application, notice to surrounding property owners, neighborhood meeting, plan commission hearing, and common council. We prepare the materials, present at the hearings, and negotiate both conditions and any infrastructure cost participation the municipality is prepared to commit to.
Where projects stall: organized neighborhood opposition that nobody saw coming. Early, honest neighbor contact is cheaper than a contested hearing.
Full construction drawings for each unit, structural design, Wisconsin energy code compliance, civil and utility engineering, and erosion control. Building permits pulled per unit or per phase depending on the municipality.
Decision point: this is where costs firm up from estimate to contract. If the pro forma doesn't survive here, it wasn't going to.
Site clearing and grading, utility installation, drives and stormwater, then foundations and vertical construction. Phased so the first homes can reach certificate of occupancy and begin generating income while later units are still framing. Final inspections, address assignment, and occupancy per unit.
How long it takes.
These are the ranges we plan against in Dane County. The variance is almost entirely in phases three and four, and it is driven by the municipality — not by the size of the project.
| Feasibility | 2–4 weeks |
| Concept site plan | 3–6 weeks |
| Pre-application & staff coordination | 3–8 weeks |
| Entitlements — by-right site plan approval | 6–12 weeks |
| Entitlements — conditional use with hearings | 3–7 months |
| Construction documents & permitting | 2–4 months |
| Site work & utilities | 4–10 weeks |
| Vertical construction, first units to occupancy | 3–5 months |
A four-unit cottage court in Madison on a by-right path is a fundamentally different schedule from the same four units in a municipality that requires a conditional use permit and a plan commission hearing. Anyone who gives you one timeline before looking at the parcel is guessing. We give you a municipality-specific schedule at the end of feasibility. Compare municipality regulations →
How we engage.
Three structures, chosen at the end of feasibility once we both know what the project is.
You own the land and the project. We provide planning, design, entitlement, and construction under a fee-based agreement. You keep full ownership and control of the asset.
You contribute land or capital; we contribute development capability and take an ownership position. Aligned incentives, shared risk, structured deal by deal.
You've already got entitlements. We come in at construction documents and build it. Appropriate when you have your own planning team but need a builder who knows small format.
Begin with feasibility
Every project on this page started with an address and a question. Send us yours and we'll tell you what the site supports before you commit to anything.
Start a Site Feasibility Review →