What’s a Plot Plan and Why Do I Need One for my New Landscaping Project?

The picture above is an example I was able to gather from www.cityofsanrafael.org of a plot plan. Plot plans are critical when beginning your journey of designing new landscaping, a new structure, or a new pool on your property.

Think of the plot plan as a road map for your landscaper or builder. This plan showcases not only your home’s dimensions, but also where your home sits in correlation to your property’s boundary lines. It also goes a step further and shows where easements lay on your property, if any. An easement is basically a portion of land on your property that technically does not belong to you. In most cases this land is owned by utility companies, such as a gas company who may have a major gas line buried in that easement, or near it. Easements are important to pay attention to on plot plans as this is an area on your property you are not allowed to build on. Most of the time you can get away with planting a few bushes or small trees, which can be transplanted if needed, however, you can not build anything permanent such as concrete work or a pergola. Building something permanent, such as concrete work or a pergola, requires a building permit so during the application process if for some reason your builder is planning to build something on the easement the building department will catch the mistake and will have you re-submit new plans. However with most landscaping work, since that does not require a permit, it is up to your landscaper to make sure they do not install this on top of an easement. If they do by mistake it could be costly to you. If the easement owner ends up needing to access that easement in the future they could make you move your landscaping work, or worse, they may just tear it out and leave you to pick up the pieces.

Another important feature that MOST plot plans indicate are elevations. Elevations are important to a property to recognize how the land is pitched. This absolutely matters tremendously to larger builds such as a pool so the builder can make proper adjustments to ensure the drainage around the pool is proper and see if the land’s slope will require the pool deck to have a retaining wall or not. With smaller landscaping jobs the drainage of the property is still important to ensure the drainage is not disturbed or altered. In addition, some smaller landscaping jobs such as planting a mulch bed may require a retaining wall if the land is sloped enough.

Here at Resilient Outdoor Living we also take plot plans one step further. For most landscape designs, or pool designs, (only if the plot plan is able to be located) we offer a FREE 2D sketch where we overlay the design over your plot plan, like the picture below. This helps homeowners envision their new landscaping or pool if they are not ready to purchase one of our other landscaping design packages. If you are located in the Metro-Detroit, MI area and you are looking for some new landscaping, a new pergola, or a new swimming pool then reach out to us today. Call us at the number below or fill out the form on the “contact” tab above. ☺