Water Is the Gatekeeper: How Proving Water Feasibility Cuts Months from Entitlements

In every fast-growth market, water infrastructure determines whether your project moves forward, or stalls for six months. Councils want new rooftops and tax base, but approvals hinge on believable answers about service capacity, drainage, and environmental constraints before they'll schedule a hearing.

The new scrutiny on water infrastructure

Councils now expect you to treat water as a regional system, not a single-agency checkbox. That means acknowledging upstream sources, downstream impacts, and how drainage, impervious cover, and open space policies shape yield before a layout ever hits the screen. 

Staff time is tight; they’re prioritizing applicants who arrive with clear visuals, a first-pass demand profile, and a credible path to service. If you can show where water comes from, how it moves across the site, and what you’ll do to manage it, you skip months of “please resubmit.”

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What to prepare before your first staff meeting

Start with the land, then invite utilities into the plan, not after it. In practice: turn on floods, wetlands, contours, and habitat overlays; sketch a concept inside those constraints; and attach a lightweight service memo with projected demand, pressure/flow notes, off-site needs, and any reuse or interim solutions you’re considering. 

Bring preliminary cut/fill and pad targets so drainage and utility reviewers can react to numbers, not narratives. In the first staff meeting, lead with what’s hard (off-site upsizing, easements, phasing) and how you’ll solve it; that transparency buys you cycle time and trust.

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Avoid the copy-paste trap

Every basin drains differently. Soil and slope change storm paths, detention math, and even phasing. “We’ll do what worked last time” is where rework begins, especially on water and stormwater. Treat each site as its own system, quantify a first-pass cut/fill and pad strategy, and you’ll keep redesigns (and tempers) in check.

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Bottom line

Ask, "What would you change?" instead of "Do you approve?"

Water is the gating item. When your first touch with staff includes constraint-aware visuals, preliminary quantities, and a plausible path to service, you shorten cycles and protect yield. Put it on the screen. Let the map do the convincing. Then ask, “What would you change?” instead of “Do you approve?”

See the full playbook

For the complete conversation, including Q&A on utility coordination, ETJ pitfalls, reimbursements, and the live demo.

👉 Watch the full webinar here

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