Service 01
Hillside Lot Planning
The whole project begins as a reading of terrain. Contours come off the survey, slopes get classified into gentle, moderate and steep runs, and view lines, solar exposure and natural bench locations each claim their share of attention. Our lot planning places every proposed pad where the ground wants to hold a home, so the eventual grading stays modest and the house site actually works.
We balance lot count against buildability. A parcel that divides into ten pretty shapes on paper can cost its owner in retaining walls and concrete steps. We instead look for the pads that drain, that accept a drive without a hairpin, and that meet municipal lot width rules without a variance. The result is a lot count plan you can fund with confidence because the geometry behind it was tested against slope, not sketched in the air.
Best for parcels above 25 per cent average slope.
Service 02
Plat and Subdivision Design
A subdivision plat is the legal map that turns open acreage into titled homesites. Our designers prepare the full document: boundary retracement, lot lines with bearing and distance, road alignments, utility and drainage easements, building setback notes and the notes block that answers planner questions before they are asked.
Legibility drives our sheet work. Cities read dozens of plats a week, and a drawing with crisp line weights and a clean legend moves through review faster than a crowded one. We keep title-ready phasing, clear callouts and correct engineering references on every sheet, then coordinate the professional survey signatures so the recorded map stands up to a title search without correction.
Handles single parcels up to full approved minor subdivisions.
Service 03
Grading and Drainage Plans
Water decides whether a hillside home stays dry. We prepare grading plans that show cut and fill in honest balance, pad grades that shed snowmelt away from the structure, and slope benches that keep runoff from cutting a furrow through a neighbour yard during an August thunderstorm.
Drainage on a hillside is never a single line; it is a system of gutters, swales, culverts and detention points working with the fall of the land. We trace the path from each roof down the slope, size the conveyance, and tie the outfall to a legal drainage easement so the storm plan does not end at someone elses fence. Builders value this work because the trenches they dig match the sheets they bought.
Includes erosion control staging on every cut face.
Service 04
Entitlement Support
Land decisions are made in meeting rooms as much as on the land. We prepare the mapping, written narratives and exhibit sheets that go to planning commissions, boards of adjustment and city staff so a proposal reads clearly to people who must approve it by ordinance.
Our briefs answer the exact question in the application form before the technical work gets complicated. A zoning letter proves conformance, a small-lot hearing shows how the density works out on real contours, and a subdivision committee packet pairs clean sheets with a summary that staff can carry into the record. Good entitlement support rarely wins an impossible case; it reliably keeps an approvable one from stalling.
Drafted to meet the local land use code in force at submittal.
Service 05
Utility Coordination
Every new lot needs power, water, sewer and usually fibre, and all four want to travel the same steep corridor the road uses. We map the utility alignment early, place water mains and sewer laterals off the road net, and reserve shallow utility easements where the services can climb without blocking a drive or a view.
Coordination saves the most money when it happens before earthwork. If the sewer must cross a lot to reach a steeper neighbour beyond, that fact belongs in the plat notes, not discovered on paper at trenching time. We supply the profile drawings, easement sketches and agency contact lists that let a general contractor run services as one clean sequence instead of a scramble.
Aligned so laterals rarely cross a neighbour pad.
Service 06
Feasibility Studies
Before a landowner writes an offer or pays for a full survey, we test what a hillside can truthfully deliver. A feasibility study produces a defensible lot count, a sketch of the access and drainage approach, and a realistic cost signal covering street, utility and grading work for the parcel studied.
We ground each study in the actual contour base available and flag the unknowns a bank or a partner will raise later: steep rock near the surface, a flood or slide overlay, a missing drainage outfall. Armed with that honesty, a buyer can say no to a bad parcel or say yes with a budget that survives contact with site conditions. It is the cheapest drawing a smart developer buys.
Delivered as a short memo, site sketch and lot table.