Building a New Home: Why You Need an Environmental Audit
Sometimes in the middle of real estate construction, pollution or harm can occur to the environment around the construction site.
In order to prevent this, New Jersey (NJ), like other states, follows the Environmental Protection Act of 1970 (‘the Act’). The Act states that when performed, an environmental audit serves the purpose of assessing the nature and extent of harm, or the risk of harm to the environment posed by an industrial process or activity, waste, substance or noise.
For future homeowners, an environmental audit involves auditing the land that a future home is being built on before or during the construction process.
No one wants to live on polluted land, and a real estate environmental audit can ensure that the land you are soon to live on is not only clean, but can keep you from future fines and construction costs to fix the problem.
In order to prevent this, planning authorities, government agencies and private business often use this system to determine the condition of a site and its suitability for use before building on it. A real estate environmental audit can protect you and your home from the same potential damage.
Confidence in Your Future Home: Managing Land in the Future
An environmental audit will provide you with the confidence as to what the future home in question can be used for in the future. Here are some examples of home projects that may require an environmental audit to assess, and without one, may incur large costs for the homeowners in the future:
- In-ground pools
- Custom landscaping
- The addition of self-standing structures (pool-houses, sheds, extra garages)
- In-ground sports additions (basketball courts, tennis courts, etc.)
Without an environmental audit, it will be unclear as to what costs these projects will incur, as well as what effect it will have on important environmental factors such as water and air quality.
Health Risks: Know About the Water and Air You Consume
Knowing your future home’s effect on the water and air supply will be pretty straightforward in the beginning. This is where an environmental audit during the construction process becomes important.
Mistakes happen during the construction process. Pipes are cut, materials may be laying in the wrong place for runoff, and ducting and in-door pipes may have to be moved around to account for additions or complications that weren’t foreseen in the beginning of the construction process.
A real estate environmental audit during construction will ensure that you’re keeping the water and air that will be consumed in your future home clean and easy to access.
Community Building: Benefit Your Neighborhood and Raise Property Values
Nobody likes a lemon – this goes for cars and homes. If your home is in need of some serious updating because of environmental problems that were incurred during construction, this is a problem for you as well as a problem for your neighborhood that has a stake in the value of your property.
In addition, problems with the water supply and the air quality won’t be contained to just your home. Chances are, they’ll be effecting others around you, creating problems for the wider community.
As a home owner or contractor in NJ, it’s your responsibility and in your best interest to perform a real estate environmental audit before you begin building as well as after construction has begun.
Call a locally certified NJ real estate environmental audit service to help you get the most out of your property.
T Slack Environmental Services is a certified real estate environmental audit service provider that can assist you in building your home the right way. For more information on how we can assist you in your audit process, contact us.