A lift station or forty fewer lots, with three weeks to decide

I'm new and reading this twice, so a basic question. Why is the lift station cost spread only across the 96 lots and not all 296? If the whole subdivision is one project, isn't every lot carrying every cost?

Juniper, allocating it to the 96 answers whether that piece of ground is worth developing at all, which is the decision in front of him. Spread across 296 it's about $5,100 a lot and disappears into the model.

Quarry, the thing I'd want scoped in Option C is who owns the liability long term. A shared lift station between two HOAs with no clear maintenance and replacement agreement is the sort of thing that sits fine for eight years and then becomes a lawsuit when the pumps need replacing. If the city will accept and maintain the station, that's a different conversation than two private associations sharing it.

The piece that stands out clearly here is timing. A three week engineering deadline paired with an option that requires a private negotiation with a neighbor plus a city approval rarely resolves in three weeks. So either the schedule needs to phase around not needing that answer yet, or that option is not actually on the table for this decision.

Vellum's point is the real one. Can Phase 2 be replatted to sit entirely in the gravity area and push the north 96 to Phase 4? At 70 percent of the site falling south, that's roughly 200 lots of gravity-served ground, against only 88 lots in so far. If the paving window pressure is about Phase 2 specifically, there may be two or three more phases of work available before the ridge question has to be answered. That buys a year to negotiate the capacity share, get more perc data, and see where rates and lot prices sit. It costs some mobilization inefficiency and possibly a longer haul for dirt balance. The other thing worth checking is the loan documents. Development loans often include a release price per lot and sometimes a minimum lot delivery schedule tied to phases as approved. If the loan agreement contemplates 296 lots and a specific phasing plan, changing the plan may need lender consent, and asking for that consent reopens the whole file. Read the covenants before committing to a resequence, and confirm anything relied on in writing with the lender.

The number worth stress testing is the $78,000 to $82,000 finished lot price, because a resequence pushes those 96 lots two years out and they'd be underwritten at today's price. A first phase closing at $79,500 now is real. Two years out on 62 foot lots is a forecast. At $56,600 all in there's room for a soft market, but not much room if the lift station comes in over the $1.5 million being carried.