How Do You Find Out What Will Be Built Next to a Home You Are Buying? (2026)

Short answer: the counties publish it. Sarasota and Manatee both post their active and approved development applications as public map layers, and the comprehensive plan's future land use map shows what nearby vacant land is allowed to become. None of it appears in the listing.

This is the question buyers ask me on almost every tour that backs up to trees, and it deserves better than the answer everyone gives, which is a shrug and the phrase I think that is preserve. The records exist, they are free, and they are worth reading before you commit rather than after a bulldozer appears.

Three different records, three different questions

Most of the confusion here comes from treating one answer as if it settles all three questions. It does not.

• The future land use map, part of the county's comprehensive plan, shows what a parcel is designated for. This is the ceiling: it is what the county has decided the land may eventually become
• The zoning shows what is permitted on the parcel today, which is often less than the designation allows
• The development application records show what somebody has actually asked for, and what has already been approved. This is the only one of the three that tells you something is coming rather than something is possible

The relationship between the first two is set by statute, and it is the part that tells you how much warning you get. Under section 163.3194 of the Florida Statutes, development orders and land development regulations must be consistent with the adopted comprehensive plan, and where the plan and a regulation conflict, the adopted plan controls action on a development order application.

The practical consequence for a buyer is this. If the future land use map already supports what a developer wants, a rezoning is a comparatively short path. If it does not, the applicant generally has to amend the comprehensive plan first, which takes longer and involves state-level review. So the designation on the map behind your lot is a reasonable early read on how exposed you are.

What the two counties actually publish

Both counties put this on public map services, which is how the pipeline on this site is built rather than from a press release or a rumor.

Sarasota publishes active and closed petitions, with separate fields for requested and approved dwelling units, commercial, office, and industrial floor area, plus the Board of County Commissioners date. Manatee publishes a General Development Plan layer of its projects. Search for Sarasota County petition data and the Manatee County land development GDP projects layer and you will find them.

Two cautions if you go digging yourself, both of which I hit when building this. On the Sarasota side, the approved fields read zero on every active petition, because an active petition has not been decided yet, and the requested fields are where the numbers live. Sum the approved column across active petitions and you will conclude nothing is coming, which is the opposite of the truth. On the Manatee side, one column means dwelling units on residential records and square feet on commercial ones, so adding it down the page produces a number that describes nothing at all.

What the records show right now

Reading both counties' planning records on 2 October 2026, this site tracks 125 projects across roughly 12,472 acres. Denied, withdrawn, and voided applications are excluded, because a denied petition is not a pipeline.

• Approved: 92 projects, accounting for 45,374 dwelling units
• Still under review: 33 projects, accounting for 15,551 dwelling units
• Of the 125 projects, 71 include dwellings and the other 54 are commercial, office, or industrial only
• Sarasota: 36 approved projects with 17,902 dwellings, and 15 under review with 9,946
• Manatee: 56 approved projects with 27,472 dwellings, and 18 under review with 5,605

The largest residential entries give a sense of the scale involved: 3H Ranch in Sarasota at 6,576 dwellings, approved in 2023; Taylor Ranch in Manatee at 5,820, approved in 2023; and Palmer Ranch East in Sarasota at 5,800, still under review as of the 2024 record.

The commercial side matters more than buyers expect, and it is why both are tracked. Whether the shops, offices, and medical buildings near a new community are also approved is often the difference between a neighborhood that gets its conveniences and one that keeps driving twenty minutes for them.

An approval is permission, not a building

This is the single most important thing to understand about every number above, and it cuts both ways.

Projects are approved and never built. They are built years later, in phases, or built smaller than what was permitted. In the pipeline above, the approvals that carry a year on record span 2016 through 2025, and 22 of the 67 dated approvals cleared the county in 2021 or earlier. Some of those are now finished neighborhoods people live in. Others are still fields.

So an approval next door is not a construction schedule, and the absence of an approval is not a guarantee of quiet either, because an application can be filed the month after you close. What the records give you is an honest picture of what has been permitted and what is being sought, which is a great deal better than guessing, and considerably better than trusting a sales office to volunteer it.

Where the public process gives you a say

For a county ordinance, section 125.66 of the Florida Statutes sets out the mechanics: two advertised public hearings, with the first held at least seven days after the first advertisement, and a published notice of the proposed enactment stating the date, time, and place and where the proposal can be inspected. For an ordinance that changes the zoning map or the list of permitted uses, the statute adds further notice, and permits the county to mail notice to each owner in the affected area instead of publishing.

Read one phrase in that statute carefully, because it is the one that matters to you: these are described as minimum notice procedures. A county's own code can require more, and the mailed-notice radius that people assume protects them is usually a matter of local code rather than state law.

If you genuinely care about a specific parcel, do not rely on receiving a letter. Both counties post their commission and planning agency agendas, and a project appears there before it is decided.

What to check before you close

• Look up the parcel behind and beside the home, not just the home itself, and note its future land use designation and its zoning
• Search the county's development application records for that area, and read both what is approved and what is under review
• Check whether the open space near the lot is a recorded preserve, conservation easement, or platted common area, since a protection recorded against the land is a far stronger assurance than a parcel that merely looks wooded
• In a community still being built, ask the developer which phases remain and where, and get the answer against the recorded plat rather than a rendering
• Scan the county commission and planning agency agendas for the area, which is where a project surfaces before it is decided
• If a view or a tree line is a material part of why you want the house, price that risk in deliberately rather than assuming it is permanent

Looking at a home with open land nearby?

None of this is a reason to avoid buying near vacant land, and in a market growing at this rate it would rule out a great deal of the best inventory. It is a reason to know which of the three records above applies to your specific parcel before you decide what the view is worth.

If you are considering a home in Parrish, Wellen Park, Lakewood Ranch, Venice, or anywhere nearby and there is open land in the picture, send me the address and I will pull the designation, the zoning, and whatever is in the county records for the parcels around it before you are under contractMLS status terms describing a property's stage in the sales process. "Under contract" (sometimes shown as active-under-contract) generally means a signed contract exists but the listing may still accept backup offers or show contingency status. "Pending" typically means all contingencies have been satisfied and the sale is proceeding to closing, with the property effectively off the market. Exact usage can vary slightly by MLS and by listing agent..

Nothing here is legal advice. The pipeline figures above are what the counties' own records said when they were read on 2 October 2026, they describe what was requested or permitted rather than what exists, and they change as applications are filed and decided. Confirm the current records for a specific parcel with the county.