Homes of all shapes and sizes are seeing incredibly low inventory, demand is overwhelming supply, driving prices up. A land surveying company has little impact on balancing this out overall, but there are available measures to help. One way to improve this situation is to streamline the process for increased density and new home construction. As logical as that seems, it really is not that simple. The permitting process for this effort is challenging, time-consuming, and expensive. Working collaboratively with cities and regulatory agencies through this process is a necessity and something Terrane excels at. While some cities have developed user-friendly processes that encourage higher density and ultimately increase homeownership, others still lack straightforward regulations and procedures for this.

A recent example and excellent case study is the city of Shoreline. Located just north of Seattle, arguably a leader in establishing regulations that encourage higher housing density and homeownership through its Unit Lot Subdivision process, the city of Shoreline has taken steps to facilitate a similar process.

Initially, rezoning a large swath of the city adjacent to future light rail or mass transit infrastructure from low-density single-family to higher-density residential led to a significant uptick in townhouse projects. Many of these allow what was once a single home to be converted into multiple units. However, simply increasing density solves only part of the problem. Shoreline had no specific regulatory process for creating fee-simple ownership of each unit on these lots, and many were left as condominium units or rentals.