Builder’s Pre-Clearing Checklist

The order of operations on a building lot matters more than the price of any single step. Survey first, because clearing an area the plan later moves is money spent twice and screening lost for nothing. Then approvals, then utility location, then erosion controls installed, and only then the clearing — and only the approved plan area, staked on the ground.

It sets out before and if it slips across 7 rows, covering boundary survey, approvals, utility location and more. It is on this page so the comparison can be read directly rather than reconstructed from prose.

Get the approved site plan with the limit of disturbance drawn on it. That comes first because everything after it depends on the answer, and reversing the order is what makes this scope expensive.

1. Get the approved site plan with the limit of disturbance drawn on it. 2. Stake the limit of disturbance on the ground. 3. Total disturbance across the whole plan for the stormwater threshold. 4. Install erosion controls before the first machine. 5. Clear investigation access only, then wait for results. 6. Clear the envelope once the position is fixed. 7. Stabilise on schedule regardless of when the builder starts.

Stabilise on schedule regardless of when the builder starts. It gets skipped because by that point the visible problem is solved, and the cost of skipping it does not appear until the following season.

Clearing before the septic and drainage investigation. Close behind it: Counting acreage per phase. Removing screening that the finished house needed.

1. Clearing before the septic and drainage investigation. 2. Counting acreage per phase. 3. Removing screening that the finished house needed.

Because survey, boundaries, utilities, erosion controls, access, retained vegetation, and sequencing — and none of those variables can be answered by a number. A range is arithmetic on assumptions; this page is the list of assumptions worth checking first.

No. Nothing here is a permit determination, a wetland delineation, a boundary opinion or a safety finding — including "get the approved site plan with the limit of disturbance drawn on it", which is guidance about what to establish, not a statement that it has been established. The property owner is the applicant for every approval on builder’s pre-clearing checklist, and the authorities behind the 3 rules cited on this page are the ones whose answers count.

The 3 rules cited on this page each carry the authority it came from and the date it was checked against that authority's own published material. The "Sequence, and what goes wrong when it slips" table is dated the same way. Rules change — the check date is printed so you can see how old the answer is rather than having to guess, and on builder’s pre-clearing checklist the figures most likely to move are the ones with a scheduled change already announced.

Construction activity disturbing one acre or more of earth needs coverage under General Permit 3-9020 — and so does a smaller disturbance that is part of a larger common plan of development that will ultimately reach one acre. Low Risk coverage caps concurrent disturbance at five acres and requires temporary or final stabilization within 14 days of the initial disturbance. Whether a mulching pass counts as "earth disturbance" depends on how much soil is exposed — ask the Stormwater Program before assuming it does not. On builder’s pre-clearing checklist specifically this bears on step 2 of the sequence on this page — stake the limit of disturbance on the ground — because that is where the boundary between what you may do and what you may not gets fixed. Source: Vermont DEC Stormwater Program, General Permit 3-9020 for Stormwater Runoff from Construction Sites, checked 2026-09-01.

Act 250 jurisdiction turns on the purpose of the work, the acreage, whether the town has permanent zoning and subdivision bylaws, road construction, and prior activity within a five-mile radius over five years. The tier framework enacted in Act 181 of 2024 is still being phased in and the thresholds have moved during that phase-in. Request a jurisdictional opinion from the District Coordinator for the district the parcel sits in. That opinion is the determination — no contractor estimate, map or calculator substitutes for it. In the context of builder’s pre-clearing checklist this belongs alongside "Get the approved site plan with the limit of disturbance drawn on it" — both are things established before any machine work, and both are the landowner's to establish rather than the contractor's.

Underground facilities are not visible from an aerial photo and a mulching head does not stop for them. Locating is a legal obligation before excavation in all three states, and the free national number routes to each state's own centre. Call 811 before the machine moves, and separately mark private lines the public locate does not cover — well lines, septic, invisible fence, LP gas runs from a tank, irrigation, and anything a previous owner installed. In the context of builder’s pre-clearing checklist this belongs alongside "Get the approved site plan with the limit of disturbance drawn on it" — both are things established before any machine work, and both are the landowner's to establish rather than the contractor's.

Before: Everything. If it slips: Cleared area in the wrong place, or a trespass. Read across the "Sequence, and what goes wrong when it slips" table on this page for how it compares with the other 6 rows.