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Building a House in North Port Florida- What You Must Know
North Port introduced a new rule when it comes to clearing your lot before building that many people do not know. If you don’t know this it may cost you $10,000+ dollars more than you needed to spend when building. Many real estate agents are not familiar with this rule, so when a client comes to us to build a house they are caught off guard by the additional costs.
This new rule in North Port Florida has a primary focus on the trees on your lot. These trees are classified as native trees, protected trees, heritage trees, and invasive tree species. The most costly mistake is not known there are several heritage trees on your property, which can cost over $2,500 to just get a permit to remove one tree!
In this episode we are going to be breaking this rule down and show you how you can calculate the additional costs.
If you are looking to buy land or build a custom house and you want to work with an experienced team that specialized in new construction reach out to us TODAY and will will walk you through both finding a lot and building you a brand new home.
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Noah Ward is a Licensed Florida Real Estate agent that specializes in New Construction and Real Estate Development. Over the past couple years he has grown a large social following by focusing on helping both future homeowners go through the new construction process and also investors with building houses at scale.
Noah is a Managing Partner at JN Development Group Inc, where the primary focus is providing the highest level of service for custom house builds and also helping real estate investors maximize their profits through real estate development.
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Building in Northport Florida just got a Little bit more difficult welcome back Everyone to the Florida real estate Guide with your host No Award and in This episode we are going to be breaking Down a a fairly new regulation that the City of Northport implemented when it Comes to building new construction that You know for us building custom houses And also helping out our investors you Know growing their real estate portfolio And building them the houses for them it Has impacted us a little bit um but now We have learned to navigate it a little Bit more so we are hoping to share what We have learned um with you guys so that You guys can you know navigate it a Little bit smoother because it can be a Little bit of a confusing process when You first look at this new regulation That took place of April uh and may of 2022 and this specific regulation is Going to uh you know account for the Trees that are on your personal lot that You are looking to build on right so Before obviously we had to get a tree Per clearing permit um to to you know Give permission to clear the trees on The property however now they are on a Point scale and what I mean by being on A point scale we have both mitigation Points and then we also have Conservation points so how this works is What you need obviously you need to have
An environmental assessment done on the Vacant lot to make sure you know it's Free of Scrub Jays and go for Tor just As bald eagles and check for wet lands Because northp is still using the old 1980s maps for wetlands and they have Not updated it since so that's why we Have a guy that comes out and checks all Of our lots that we purchase for our Investors and home buyers so this new Lot or this new uh regulation it relates To trees that has to be done in Northport so what you do is you hire a Person to go out they measure the Circumference of all the trees so this Tree regulation only pertains to you Know the native trees not the invasive Trees you know all the invasive trees They are can be cut down without an Issue but this is going to be Uh accounting for all the Heritage trees And protected trees and also the native Trees here in Northport specifically so There are some Oaks we got to be careful Of some pine trees and some palm trees That we have to be aware of as well so Let's just break it down really quick so Let's say that we need to cut down a lot Of these trees so that we can build a House we have to fill out what is called A mitigation form report and how this Works is that when we are mitigating Points so we want to take so we have to You know measure the circumference uh or
The diameter I mean of all of the trees We measure the diameter of each tree and They get marked down on a tree survey so What happens is let's just say that a Tree is 9 in right let's just say a tree Is 9 in and the mitigation points are Going to be um determined by what kind Of tree it is whether it be um an oak a Pine or you know some other kind of Native tree but for this example example Let's just use a pine for example so if Our pine tree is 9 in long or 9 in in Diameter what we need to do is divide That by three so 9 divid by 3 is three That gives us three mitigation points Right so we have to go through all that For all of the trees that are on the Property you know all the native trees I Should say in protected trees Heritage Trees on the property so we have to go Through and we have to figure figure out All the mitigation points however when a Heritage tree is above 24 in in diam Or a tree is above 24 in in diameter it Is what it we consider a Heritage tree So let's just say for example this Heritage tree that's an oak is 32 in in Diameter so when a Heritage tree you Know is larger than 24 in what we have To do is take the diameter and multiply It by $100 so let's just say our Heritage tree is 32 in in diameter we Have to multiply that by 100 and that Gets us $3,200 to remove just just that
One tree $3,200 just to remove that one Tree that's just I've gotten a lot of Questions about that and to me it still Doesn't make a lot of sense of what They're doing I get that they're just Protecting the um environment but there Needs to be a little bit more leniency On that in in my professional opinion um So let's go back to besides Heritage Trees our mitigation points like I said We have all of our mitigation points add Those all up then we have to go through What is called a conservation map and a Conservation chart so very similar to You know all the protected Pines Oaks And native trees remaining on the site So what we do is all the trees that we Can keep which we want to try to keep as Many as possible to save as much money So what we do we keep all the trees that We can on the outer perimeter of the House um just to make sure you know it's Not in the way of construction or Anything like that so for example There's a point scale that goes on so Let's just say that you know we have a Heritage tree that's remaining on the Property right so what we do is we take The diameter and we can multiply that by Three to get our conservation points and Then what we do for every tree that we Keep we go through like for example Pines and Oaks we multiply the diameter By two so let's just say a diameter of a
Pine tree is 12 in and we're keeping it We multiply by two that gives us 24 Conservation points so at the end of all This chart we add up all of our Conservation points and then what we do Is we take our conservation points put Them into the final calculations chart And then from there then we take our Mitigation points we subtract the the um Mitigation points from the conservation Points that is going to give us a number Then what we do is we take that number And we multiply it by 50 so for example Let's just say that our Point balance is A negative number because for example You have more conservation points than Mitigation points and since you take Mitigation points subtract conservation Points you get a negative number if you Get a negative number that's zero so you Don't have to pay any additional money For the the permit unless you have a Heritage tree that you're removing then You have to add that back in at the end Of the day however let's just say that You know our mitigation points are 92 But our conservation points are 68 that Means that we have a balance of 24 Points remaining left so what we need to Do is we need to take the 24 and Multiply that by 50 that gives us $1,200 $1,200 is what we need to pay for um a Mitigation fee Al together and then we Also add up what our mitigation fee was
For the Heritage tree but if you Remember $3,200 so $3,200 plus $1,200 That is going to give us $4,400 and so that is what is left that We still need to pay is $4,400 for a Tree clearing permit so keep that in Mind when you are you know looking at Buying a lot that there is I would say Between the Lots we are seeing an Average of 3 to 5,000 extra exra dollars Going into tree clearing permits um and Mitigation permits I should say um so Just keep that in mind when you are Looking and evaluating a lot if a lot Has you know a lot of Heritage trees I Wouldn't bother buying the lot but if You want our professional opinion since We buy lots for both uh future Homeowners to build on and also Investors feel free to reach out to us On our Instagram we're more than happy To provide some insight on you know how To go about buying land in Northport or Sarasota County in general but if you Guys want want to see what we are doing With all brand new construction and also Real estate development with our Investor Partners definitely go and Check out our Instagram YouTube and Tik Tok where we release daily content on All those social platforms so that you Guys can see a little bit behind the Scenes what we doing and kind of you Know what the new construction Market is
Looking like in Sarasota County and then Also if you guys have a podcast episode Topic that you want or maybe you listen To an episode but you want a little bit More information on a certain part of it Feel free to reach out to us on Instagram message us and we'd be more Than happy to either explain a little Bit more go in depth or we can create an All new episode that you know strictly Focuses on that one topic but once again Thank you guys for listening to this Podcast episode and we will catch you Guys all next week
