Farmland as a building plot - is the soil suitable for house construction?

Hello everyone,

since we have decided to build a house in the foreseeable future, we are currently looking for a suitable plot of land for it. In our town, a field is soon to be converted into building land. The citizen information about this development area contains the following:

"Due to the intensive agricultural use of the planning area, pre-contaminations of soil and groundwater, e.g. from inputs of fertilizer and pesticides, are to be expected."

Now my question: what is generally to be made of such plots of land? The soil probably has to be replaced due to the pre-contamination, who covers the cost for that? Is it possible that the soil, despite the replacement, is still contaminated and that this could have long-term effects on the health of the new residents of the plot? Would you rather advise against buying such a plot? Or are we worrying unnecessarily?

Thank you in advance!

CitizenX

so

first of all, you would pay for the soil replacement. either directly because it is included in the purchase contract, or indirectly by simply calculating it into the sqm.
groundwater basically doesn't matter as long as you don't dig a well. if the soil is replaced, nothing can happen anymore. contaminated soil could cause not-so-great vegetables. otherwise, there is nothing to fear.
the cattle are standing there on it as well.

best to check what is HAPPENING on this piece of land NOW. whether it's a meadow with cattle on it or a field. you could also talk to the farmer who currently owns the property.

overall, the property will probably be quite cheap because it is rural. you should rather make sure that your south/west terrace facing the forest is not ruined in 5 years by another row of houses.

New development areas nowadays are almost entirely old fields or fallow land, which, for example, were previously used industrially (e.g., mining). So nothing special, the municipality has to secure itself as well. So soil replacement and enjoy the property, costs see [Payday].

Our land was also former farmland, but not contaminated (rural, but expensive commuter belt of Hamburg). I think this will improve over the years. If it is still farmland now, it will take a while longer to build.

: It is about arable land on which something is being cultivated; it is not grazing land. The property belongs to a total of 90 owners, about 1/3 of the area of the city, and I am hoping that we will get one of these properties because they are supposed to be sold at prices affordable for young families. I actually thought that the city, especially if it already knows about the soil contamination beforehand, would have to replace (or at least remove) it. What exactly do you mean by "it is included in the m²"? Shouldn't it rather be deducted since I have to bear the costs for it?

Unfortunately, the property will not be available at a cheap price because we are directly on the border of a large city, and thus prices of about €400 per m² (benchmark) are being asked. There is no forest here either, but that is not a problem for us.

How high are the costs for soil replacement per m² (or m³)? Or is it not possible to say that in general?

Now my question is: what is generally to be made of such plots of land?

In my opinion, that can mean anything from "we write something down just to be safe, so that no one comes afterwards" to highly contaminated and needs to be replaced. In former chemical parks (in the East, no one has looked there yet in the West) the soil was exchanged up to 6 meters deep (or was it 8?). That was necessary there! I would be skeptical with industrial areas, also with gas stations and similar. I consider panic inappropriate with farmland; you would have to check what is really behind it. (Inquire. Possibly take a sample and have it analyzed.) If an exchange is necessary, the costs depend heavily on the contamination. The dirt has to be removed (work in full protective gear?) and taken somewhere or decontaminated. I would suspect your project would be dead because of that.