Property types
Valuing vacant land, where the use is the argument
With no building to anchor the valuation, vacant land is worth whatever the market believes it can become. Highest and best use is therefore not one part of the analysis; it is almost the whole of it.
The central question
Pasture or development site
The same field can be worth four thousand dollars an acre as grazing land and eighty thousand as a serviced residential site. Nothing physical distinguishes the two valuations. The difference is a judgement about what a buyer would reasonably have expected to do with it.
That judgement must be supported. A general belief that the area is growing is not enough. What counts is the plan designation, the record of what the authority has permitted on comparable land, the proximity of services, and above all sales of similar land at prices that only the higher use would justify. Where that evidence exists, valuing the land at its current use understates compensation substantially. Where it does not, claiming the higher use is speculation.
Also relevant
Factors that constrain or enable the use
Legal access
Land without a legal right of access to a public road is worth a fraction of otherwise identical land.
Services
Water, sewer and power at the boundary make development feasible; a mile away they may not.
Flood and wetland designation
Mapped constraints reduce buildable area and can rule out a use entirely.
Topography
Slope, rock and drainage determine how much of the area is usable and at what cost.
Minimum lot size
A parcel reduced below the threshold by a taking changes category, not just size.
Existing approvals
A current or lapsed planning consent is direct evidence of what the authority will permit.
Questions about land
The taking leaves me below the minimum lot size. What happens
The remainder\u2019s highest and best use has changed, and that change usually produces a far larger loss than the acreage taken. It is one of the clearest severance damage scenarios there is.
I have been told my land will be rezoned in a few years
Reasonable probability of rezoning can be reflected in value, discounted for the time and risk involved. Pure expectation cannot. The distinction turns on evidence.
Does the appraiser have to value the land as if subdivided
No, and valuing land as the sum of the lots it could become generally overstates value because it ignores the cost, time and risk of getting there. A development analysis handles this properly; a simple multiplication does not.
Get a valuation question answered
If an offer has arrived and the number does not match what you believe the property is worth, the appraisal behind it is the place to look. Start with the pages below.