Verifying PropTech Idea - Metro Area Interactive Zoning Map
Hey Folks,

I've been working on some interactive zoning maps for my area as a side project. I think there's potential for a business here, based on conversations that I've had with some architects who are personal connections of mine, but I have fewer connections in the commercial real estate world so I'd love to hear from you all as well.

My idea is a detailed regional zoning map that combines disparate information from all of the different municipalities in my metro area (I live in Metro Philadelphia) into a single one-stop shop for everything land use related. 

Suppose that you wanted to find a property 5 minutes from a highway exit that was zoned by-right for multi-family development and allowed 80% of the lot to be developed. Instead of needing to look at each municipality's zoning code where properties fit that criterion, you'd be able to just set some filters on the program, and the program would then only display properties that followed your inputted rule set. You could set any number of different filters relating to land use rules. 

Is this a product that would be of value to those of you in the commercial real estate world or the real estate investing world? Would it help any of you to find value where it may have been more difficult before? 

I know there are a few other startups that do something similar, but I don't see any that are taking an in-depth look at a full metro area. Most appear to be focused on just the central city municipalities. Would a product that provides coverage over a full metro area be something more valuable than one that only includes the biggest municipality or two in the area?

I would appreciate any feedback or ideas on how this could be made more useful for developers or investors.
[{"id": "ils3l9i", "text": "Most municipalities already have GIS based zoning maps, but I would say yes to your question on if it would be nice to have this for a region.  \n\nThe filters are an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how feasible it would be for you to map out and filter all scenarios that people may be searching for.  In general I like the idea, I'm just not sure it can be implemented in a practical sense.", "replies": [{"id": "ils8k0u", "text": "Thanks for the feedback!\n\nMy thinking is that the real value is in the filters. Some Philly counties put out a county-level GIS zoning map, but the issue that I'm seeing is that NC-1 means one thing in one township, and another thing in another. An NC-1 zone might mean an 80-foot setback from the property line in township A versus a 30-foot setback in township B, and I assume that determines what can be developed or what projects might or might not work.  \n\nOnce the data is gathered from all the townships doing the filtering stuff is a pretty straightforward programming task. I have a pretty good idea of how to gather all the data and code this up, but it's a fair bit of work so want to make sure it's something that I'd have a market for before I start doing the work. \n\nRight now, for each combination of Zone &amp; Building types, I have demo data for:\n\n* By-right status\n* Min Lot Size\n* Min Lot Width\n* Maximum Buildable Footprint\n* Maximum Impervious Surface %\n* FAR\n* Min/Max Front, Side, and Rear Setbacks\n* Maximum Height\n* Maximum # Permitted Units\n* Required Parking Spaces\n* Types of Permitted Businesses\n* Any changes to the above rules as required/made allowed by special overlay/opportunity districts\n\nAre there other things that would be useful for you guys as developers or investors that I should also include as data points? Either zoning-land use related rules, or economic/locational data points about a particular location.", "replies": [{"id": "iltz3fv", "text": "Most institutional level CRE firms are able to implement a proprietary version of this themselves. I think there is value here for smaller integrated firms", "replies": [{"id": "imbz60t", "text": "Really? which ones? and what do the systems look like?", "replies": [{"id": "imcb19w", "text": "Institutional-level integrated or development-specific firms; Greystar, Durst, etc. they just look like any GIS map", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}, {"id": "ilu27th", "text": "OP - just because something is \"nice to have\" doesn't mean people are willing to pay for it / you can create a business from it...", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ilseuno", "text": "[Deepblocks](https://www.deepblocks.com/) does this", "replies": [{"id": "ilsft7v", "text": "I'm aware of them, their software looks good but I don't think they have a lot of depth outside of the Miami &amp; Dallas areas. Do you use them/like them? And if there was a comparable product that offered more than just the central cities that Deepblocks offers in most metros, would that add additional value?\n\n[Gridics](https://gridics.com/propzone/) is another startup that has a product in this space.", "replies": [{"id": "imhnvcs", "text": "Deepblocks has the right idea but lacks a friendly user interface and needs a lot more data to work properly. \n\nI played around in the software a few months back and while Toronto had enough data to work properly, Calgary/Edmonton/Vancouver we\u2019re still missing a lot of building code &amp; developer rules. \n\n\nSimple search filters as basic as zoning + building size + category would be a huge benefit. \n\nFor example if you were looking for a pre-existing property that was zoned for entertainment use and you wanted a minimum occupant load of 1000, a simple map search should be able to produce a list of properties between 6000-26,000sq ft in the searchable area and further filter by zoning. \n\nThis would be simple if the data was all in the systems data end or api linked, but without an mls listing data must be scraped from government websites, municipal property databases and this can become quite a lengthy process.", "replies": [{"id": "imuuee4", "text": "&gt;Deepblocks has the right idea but lacks a friendly user interface and needs a lot more data to work properly.\n\nI'm surprised that's the case. I watched one of their demos and it looked pretty slick, but I guess they're only showing the cities where there data is good. I thought this:\n\n&gt;For example if you were looking for a pre-existing property that was zoned for entertainment use and you wanted a minimum occupant load of 1000, a simple map search should be able to produce a list of properties between 6000-26,000sq ft in the searchable area and further filter by zoning.\n\nwas actually something that deepblocks was supposed to be pretty good at. \n\nThis is super useful stuff to be hearing, you're exactly the person I need to be talking to. I know this is a big ask coming off of a reddit comment, but if you'd be willing to have like a 20 minute zoom call about this stuff, about what you liked and didn't like about Deepblocks, and what you want to see in a product like this, I'd be eternally grateful and would be happy to buy you lunch or something. DM me.", "replies": [], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "iltbc19", "text": "If you could scale this nationally, you would 1000% be acquired by CoStar.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "iltr35l", "text": "Autoprop in Vancouver, canada does this, was acquired by real estate board... if you could scale to a region basis I imagine your local real estate boards might be interested as well, you could start off with a subscription model for CRE firms\n\nit doesn't have any filtered search functionality as that might be super hard to implement", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ilts1zt", "text": "Maybe I'm looking at doing something similar to you since I haven't found a centralized location for this as well.  \n\nI have started to capture the town bylaws in PDF form and they typically have a table of uses.  A commercial developer friend asked if I could identify properties zoned for their a specific use so they could expand their target properties to ones allowed by right.  They aren't having luck buying existing businesses for a potential tenant.  A tenant would like to expand into Mass and build/buy 20ish locations. So its a race to get them as soon as possible without having to deal with zone changes.\n\nIf I extracted this data to a table, I could map/query areas for any future use category.  I went down this path because zoning data on Mass properties is pretty sparce without doing it property by property.\n\nGiven the info you mentioned below, it seems your extracting bylaw data as well?", "replies": [{"id": "ilv78jz", "text": "Yeah, that's been my approach", "replies": [{"id": "ilvqbd9", "text": "I think you have your answer on it being viable. From the options above, it seems difficult to do this on a broad scale.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]