Split or not a Lot

[Fltaz]

Originally Posted by Tripower455

Yup.... The 75' lots are too narrow, IMHO. We're in the midst of splitting my 5 acres, and I can't even imagine having a neighbor at the 165' line!

The GGE "standard" lot was originally 5 acres, measuring 330' wide x 660' deep, and they were subdivided down from there, both by Gulf American and individual owners.


The vast majority of them were divided so that the resulting smaller lots had road frontage, the smallest, again, with a few exceptions, being 75'x660'. There are some that were divided across the middle of the lot, parallel to the road.

Lots along major roads, canals and other obstacles vary a bit.

One interesting anomaly is at the end of 5th Ave SW, on the "Castle" streets. Prior to 1974, someone took the Rosen's advice (or maybe it was originally sold like that by GA), to "buy it by the acre and sell it by the lot", and subdivided +/- 10 acres at the end, along the canal, into 21 separate 1/3 and 1/4 acre lots. This would've been the fate of much of the estates had they not changed the zoning rule.

My theory, which I haven't been able to prove, as to why the lots are 660' deep, is that GGE was originally platted to have a nominal lot size of 2.5 acres, 330'x330' square, with another street in between the current ones. This would've been more logical from a development standpoint.

Gulf American never intended to develop GGE beyond digging the canals, grading some roads and selling the raw land. I am guessing that when they ran the numbers, that they concluded that they could make a lot more profit by eliminating every other road, and simply selling the 660' deep lots. This would also explain why the streets skip a number, either all odd or all even.

That was indeed the original plan for GGE. There would be another street built in between the existing streets. That is why the numbered streets were all either even numbers or odd numbers such as 2nd, 4th, 6h or 1st, 3rd, 5th etc. The missing street would be built later on. Many people did not know that in the very back of their property there was an easement to build the missing street. Another thing that was not well known was that in the middle of their property was an easement to build and alley. This came up on our street off Oakes Blvd. Many homes had been built on that easement over the years and no one at the county caught it. Finally someone caught it and denied a building permit because of that. All the residents on our street hired and attorney to get the county to abandoned the alley which they seemed happy to do. It was an easy fix thankfully. I do believe that the county has abandoned all those easements now but one should check before building.

[Fltaz]

Originally Posted by Tripower455

I am reasonably certain that if the lot was not split prior to 1974, it cannot be split smaller than 2.25 acres, which means yours cannot be split smaller.

If, in fact, I am wrong, and it can be split, plan on spending about $2K to do it. You need 3 surveys and another fee to the county to do it.

I am about to split a 5 acre lot myself.

You are correct. You can no longer split lots any smaller than 1 1/2 acres. The 75 foot lots are no longer allowed other than the ones that have already been plotted. We use to call those skinny lots "Spaghetti Farms".