How to find vacant lots and land to build on
Updated
- For listed land, work with a local agent who can search the MLS, and watch land listing sites and town surplus property sales.
- For unlisted land, use public assessor records to find parcels recorded as vacant, or holding far less than their zoning allows.
- Check each one's zoning, size, access, utilities and wetlands before you spend money on it.
- Write to the owner of record.
Most searches for land start with listings and stop there. Listings are the easy part: what is for sale is advertised, and everyone sees it at the same time. The land that becomes the next development usually is not listed when someone first spots it. This guide covers both, with most of the attention on the second.
Listed land: vacant lots for sale
A local agent with MLS access sees land listings as they appear and can set up a search that alerts you to new ones by town, size and price. General land listing sites carry many of the same lots and some that are sold without an agent. Towns also sell land: parcels taken for unpaid taxes and surplus municipal property are usually offered by public auction or bid, and the town's website or finance office announces them.
Listed lots have one real advantage: the owner has already decided to sell. The disadvantage is that every other builder has seen the same listing, and a lot that is easy to build on rarely stays listed long.
Unlisted land: finding vacant land before it is for sale
Every parcel in Connecticut is in the assessor records of the town it sits in, and every record carries a land use classification. That makes the assessor's database the most complete list of vacant land there is: parcels classified as vacant or undeveloped land, residential lots without a dwelling, and so on. Town GIS viewers let you see where they are and how big. The statewide CAMA and parcel layer collects the same records for all 169 towns in one place.
A list of vacant parcels is only a start. Many are vacant for a reason: too small to build on under current zoning, landlocked, wet, steep, or kept as open space. The work is in narrowing the list to lots where something can actually be built, and that comes down to zoning.
How to find land zoned for multifamily
If the goal is more than one home, such as a duplex, a small apartment building or townhouses, the question changes from "which lots are empty" to "which lots are zoned for more homes than they hold". Answering it means three steps for each town:
- Read the town's zoning regulations and list the districts that permit two or more dwelling units, as of right or by special permit.
- Find every parcel in those districts on the zoning map or in the assessor records.
- Keep the ones that are vacant or hold a single house.
The first step is where most searches go wrong. Zone codes are local, and they do not translate between towns: in most Connecticut towns the number in an R district is a minimum lot size, so R-15 is a 15,000 square foot lot for one house, yet some cities use near-identical codes for districts full of two- and three-family homes. Matching codes by pattern across towns produces long lists of the wrong land.
This site does the three steps for every town it indexes. It reads each district from what is actually built in it and from the town's own regulations, and keeps the parcels whose district permits multi-family housing while they hold a single house or vacant land. In Connecticut that is 51,769 parcels today, of which 4,199 are vacant lots. See them town by town, or search a county or ZIP code.
A single-family house on a lot zoned for several units is worth a look even though it is not vacant. It is a common kind of infill site; see what is an infill lot.
What to check before you make an offer
Whether you found a lot listed or unlisted, check the same things before you commit:
- Zoning. The district, what it allows, and the dimensional rules: minimum lot area, frontage, setbacks, height, and lot area per unit for anything multi-family. See how to check the zoning of a property.
- Conformity. Whether the lot meets today's minimum size and frontage. An undersized lot may still be buildable as a pre-existing lot, or may not; the zoning office can say.
- Access. Frontage on a public street, or a recorded right of way. A lot without legal access can be close to unbuildable.
- Wetlands and watercourses. Every Connecticut town has an inland wetlands agency, and work in or near wetlands needs its permit. Flood zones add their own rules.
- Water and sewer. Whether public sewer and water reach the lot. Where they do not, septic capacity under the public health code often sets how many bedrooms, and so how many units, the lot can carry.
- Title and survey. Easements, restrictions and boundary questions, found in the land records and by a survey.
Reaching the owner
For unlisted land, the last step is a letter to the owner of record at the mailing address on the assessor's card. The assessor's record, the land records and, for companies and estates, the Secretary of the State's business records and the probate court will tell you who that is: see how to find the owner of a vacant lot.
Finding land to build apartments
For a project of five or more units the same method applies with tighter filters: districts that permit multi-family dwellings of that size, lots large enough for the units, parking and setbacks, and public sewer and water. In Connecticut, districts that allow apartments tend to sit in and around town centres and in the cities, where sewer and water already run. Filtering a county's qualifying parcels by minimum lot size is the quickest way to see which are big enough.
Common questions
How do I find vacant land that is not for sale?
Use the assessor's land-use classification to find parcels recorded as vacant, check each one's zoning, and write to the owner of record. Most land changes hands without ever being listed.
How do I find land zoned for multifamily?
Find which districts in a town permit two or more units, then list the parcels in those districts. Zone codes do not mean the same thing from town to town, so each town's regulations have to be read, or a tool that has read them used.
What should I check before buying a lot to build on?
Zoning and the dimensional rules for the district, frontage and access, wetlands and watercourses, sewer or septic and water, title and survey, and whether the lot conforms to current minimum lot size.
General information drawn from public records and how Connecticut towns publish them, not legal advice. A town's zoning office, and an attorney for anything you are buying, are the authorities on a specific property.