Professional property developers understand the great financial value that acquiring property lands before they are developed. Land Banking is a strategy used by many professional property developers to secure future property development sites today, at the current price. Those property developers usually buy large tracts of land and put them in their “land bank” to ensure they have a sufficient stock of land for future property developments. The real estate developers can then rezone the land, put in the necessary roads and infrastructure, obtain property development approvals, and divide the land into parcels to either sell the individual plots or develop the lands on their own.
Using Project Management Information System (PMIS) that covers properties’ pre-development, development, and post-development phases like PMWeb, property developers can align their strategy and associated processes across those three phases. In the previous articles, many articles were written that cover the many processes for the development and post-development phases. In this article, PMWeb will be used to manage, monitor, evaluate and report on the property owner’s land bank. PMWeb Location module will be used to capture the details of all locations where plots owned by the property owner exist. Those could be locations within the same country or across the globe. For each identified location, PMWeb by default location module allows capturing location ID and name, location zoning details, google GIS location and address details, and landowner detail among others.
Within each location, the PMWeb projects module will be used to add projects to map the plots owned by the real estate development company. In addition to the many default fields available for each project, PMWeb allows adding all additional fields needed to better define a plot of land such as plot number, plot area, plot usage, building height allowed, gross floor area (GFA) in square foot or square meter, whether the plot classification is considered to be a brownfield, amber field or greenfield. Of course, additional fields can be also added if deemed necessary to better define the land plot.
The attachment tab allows attaching all supportive documents for the plots such as plot maps, ownership deeds, pictures of the concept design model, concept design drawings, and third-party valuation reporting among others. All those documents are usually uploaded and stored in their relevant PMWeb Document Management folder for which access rights be set to restrict access to those documents. The user can select what documents that are either in PDF or picture file format to be displayed on the project page.
Further, PMWeb allows creation programs to group plots, that is projects, that are related to each other. For example, those could be plots that are located in the same location as a country or plots that will be part of developing a new neighborhood or zone. Programs are also used to align the development of the plot with the organization’s real estate development strategy where each program will be a strategic initiative.
The valuation for each plot will be captured using the PMWeb Contract module. The contract agreement will provide details of the entity that provided the land valuation along with all necessary details. The contract module will itemize the plot area in M2, SF, or any unit of measure as well as itemize all other elements of the land plot that could be attributed to the land valuation. For each item, there will be a unit price of the valuation to calculate the correct land value. The valuation can be done by the relevant currency as PMWeb allows capturing cost data in multi-currency. The contract module can be also used to capture all land valuations done by different entities but the selected valuation will have the status of approved while all other valuations will have the status of rejected.
The change module that is part of the contract module will be used to capture all adjustments made to approved land valuation whether there are additional items to be added or deleted, change in quantities and increase or decrease in the previously estimated unit price for the valuation.
The contract agreement form and similar to all other forms in PMWeb will be attached with all supportive documents and linked to all relevant PMWeb records and imported MS Outlook emails. Those supportive documents could be drawings, BIM models, or pictures. agreements, specifications, and permits among many others will be uploaded and stored in their relevant folders in the PMWeb document management repository.
The contract agreement, or valuation, will be assigned with a workflow to ensure that it has been reviewed and approved by the right organization’s team members. The workflow will identify all needed steps, the duration for each step, responsibility for each step, actions that can be taken for each step, and the sequence for performing those steps. PMWeb also allows adding conditions to the workflow steps to incorporate the approval authority levels for the land valuation report.
The data captured in PMWeb can be presented in the desired form and format. For example, a report can be created to display the list of all plots owned by the property developer for which the content can be selected depending on the information captured in the project and contract modules. In addition, there will be a bar chart visual that summarizes the number of plots by use which could be commercial, residential, mixed, shopping mall, or housing among others. The report includes three summary cards for gross plots area for all plots, gross floor area in SF for all plots, and valuation for all plots. The report includes a map that shows the location of all plots, the color of map points is similar to the colors used in the plot use. Of course, the report includes filters for plot use, allowed floor heights, and the region where the plot is located.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with more than 35-year service record providing project management and controls services to over 100 projects with a total value of over US $5 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education, and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication, and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training, and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker on topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management, and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years, he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South America. He has written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP), an Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE), and a Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Master’s in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, from George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – from Kuwait University, Kuwait, and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA, and London Business School, London, UK.