Day one on a raw Arizona parcel: what to bring, what to check, what to mark

The first trip to a raw parcel is reconnaissance, not construction. The goal is to come home knowing where the corners are, where the water goes when it rains, which way the road really runs, and what the land will let you build. Here is how to spend the day, and the gear that keeps it from being a wasted one. The gear itself, with links, is on the day-one gear page.

Before you leave

• Download the county GIS parcel map for offline use, or screenshot the parcel with its APN and the neighboring APNs.
• Save the parcel corner coordinates from the GIS layer into a handheld GPS or your phone. They will get you within a few meters of a pin; a survey gets you to it.
• Tell someone where you are going and when you will be back. Most rural Arizona parcels have no cell service, and a satellite messenger is the only way to call for help.
• Check the forecast for the whole watershed, not just the parcel. A dry wash fills from rain you cannot see.

On the parcel: find and mark

• Corners. Look for rebar with a plastic cap stamped with a surveyor's license number, or an older iron pipe. Flag each one you find with tape on a lath or stake. Note which ones you could not find; a surveyor re-setting one pin is cheap, re-establishing all four is not.
• The road. Walk the access from the public road to the parcel line. Note where it crosses other parcels, washes, or fences. Compare with the recorded plat when you get home.
• Drainage. Washes, cut banks, debris lines on fence posts and tree trunks, and the sand and gravel fans below them all tell you where water runs and how high it has been. Do not plan a pad in any of it.
• Soil. Dig a test hole with a post-hole digger or shovel at the spot you would put a house and the spot you would put a septic field. Caliche a foot down changes everything about both.
• Sun and wind. Note where the afternoon sun comes from and where the wind rows the dust. The solar array and the house orientation follow from this.
• Neighbors' infrastructure. Wells, power poles, propane tanks and water tanks on adjacent parcels tell you what works here and roughly what it cost.

Things that bite

• Rattlesnakes are active March through October and in warm winter afternoons. Gaiters and watching where you put your hands are the whole program.
• Heat. A gallon of water per person per half day in summer, electrolytes, and shade you brought with you, because there will be none.
• Sand and caliche. A two-wheel-drive vehicle gets stuck in both. A recovery strap and a shovel turn a tow bill into twenty minutes.
• Cholla and mesquite thorns go through sneakers and most gloves. Leather gloves and boots.

Before you leave the parcel

Photograph every corner pin, the access road at the parcel line, and anything that looks like a prior use: an old pad, a trash pit, a capped well, a fence line that does not match the plat. Those photos answer the questions the county, the surveyor and the septic designer will ask next. If the parcel is far from home, this is where a drone flight earns its fee: one orthomosaic shows the washes, the road and the fence lines at once, and a contractor can quote a clearing job from it without a second trip.

The next three calls

1. The county planning department: what the zoning district allows and the minimum lot size.
2. County environmental health (or ADEQ, depending on county): septic permit requirements and whether a perc test or soil evaluation is needed.
3. The utility: is there power at the road, and what a line extension to the parcel costs per foot.