What a good site summary contains

It starts with the parcel itself

Every summary first confirms which land it describes. The parcel number, the owner of record, the acreage on the tax card, and the boundary come from county records. If the county map and the deed disagree, the summary says so. See parcels and boundaries.

A report built on the wrong parcel is wrong everywhere. That is why this step comes first.

Findings sorted by how sure they are

A good summary puts each finding into one of three groups.

• Confirmed. The public record states it directly. The zoning designation, a recorded easement, the mapped floodway on the tract.
• Suggested. The record points toward it but does not settle it. Soils that suggest wet ground. A transmission line that suggests a path to power.
• To be verified. The record cannot answer it. Utility capacity, regulated wetlands, depth to rock, how a board will vote.

Mixing these groups is how reports mislead. A suggested finding written as a confirmed one moves risk to the buyer without anyone saying so.

Open items written as questions

Each item that needs verification appears as a question, with two notes beside it: who answers it, and which decision it changes.

For example: “Can the nearest substation serve this load, and by what date? The serving utility answers. The answer decides whether the site stays on the list.” Or: “Do the mapped wetlands fall under federal rules? A wetland scientist and the agencies answer. The answer changes usable acreage and layout.” See what a wetland delineation is.

Written this way, the list becomes a work plan. A buyer can assign each question to a professional and see which ones could end the deal.

The date of each source

Public data ages. Flood maps are revised, zoning changes, boards adopt pauses, and ownership transfers. A good summary gives the date it read each source, so the buyer knows what to refresh before relying on it.

An honest line where a source failed

Sometimes a county website is down, a map service returns an error, or a record is not online. The summary says so in plain words: “The county zoning map was unavailable on this date. Zoning is unverified.” A failed lookup is an unknown. It is never a clean result.

The order of importance

A summary lists items in the order they can stop a site, not the order they were checked. A local pause or an open power question comes before a driveway permit. The reader should see the deciding issues in the first paragraph. See data-center site selection criteria.

Why this structure helps a buyer

A buyer reads many sites and drops a large share of them. This structure lets the buyer drop a weak site fast, spend money only on the questions that matter, and hand each question to the right professional.

It also shows where desktop research stops. The record can frame a site. Surveys, studies, and written answers from utilities and governments decide it. See what desktop research cannot replace.

Questions

Is a site summary the same as due diligence?

No. A summary reads the public record and frames the questions. Due diligence answers them, with surveys, studies, and written responses from utilities and governments.

Who answers the open questions?

The professional or agency named beside each question: the utility, the local planning office, a surveyor, an engineer, a wetland scientist, or an attorney.

How current is a site summary?

As current as its oldest source. Check the date listed with each source, and refresh any that matter before you rely on them.