Finding a lot
Farm field
Here is what I purchased. Pretty? No. Cheap? Yes!
I was working in Edmonton. Finding a lot in the city was my preference. Naive I was. Most lots were in possession of home builders. The ones that were not, were expensive and had tight architectural control which meant that I would have to oblige to whatever the city was going to dictate me.
I'm not even mentioning the size of city lots and how close they are to each other. Building a 40-foot sailboat would have certainly created a public outcry in a neighborhood.
Off I was driving all around Parkland, Sturgeon and Lac St. Anne Counties, basically everywhere west of Edmonton. Sometimes I even went as far as Wabamun Lake. East of Edmonton frightened me with its industrial development, mostly oil related businesses such as Petro-Canada Edmonton Refinery , where on the western side I only saw gravel pits, which eventually are reclaimed by farmers.
During my trips I saw nice acreages in treed areas but more expensive and remote. The one I had bought was only 20 minutes off St. Albert.
The advantages of the land were
- electricity, gas and phone at the property line
- well established subdivision, gravel road though. They put asphalt five years later
- divided from a highway by a river and treed area
- school bus service
- no trees on site - no tree removal worries
- no neighbors on three sides - less complaints about sailboat construction
- proximity to the city - less daily commuting
- one acre, which is enough for a house, a sailboat and a soccer field
- the drawback, of course, was lots of lawn mowing
- at least twice as less expensive as other acreages that I had seen
- variety of wildlife, including deer, awls, coyotes, porcupines and foxes.