Zoning is not a formality you hand off to a consultant after you've bought the land. It is the first design decision made on your project — and it was made without you, years or decades before you arrived. By the time you're standing on a lot imagining what you'll build, the zoning code has already determined how much of it you can cover, how high you can go, how far you must sit from every boundary, and — if the site has any slope to it — how much of your budget disappears into the ground before a single wall goes up.

Most first-time developers and investors don't discover this until they're mid-process. This article is the earlier conversation.

Choosing a roofing system is one of the earliest structural decisions in any residential build — and one of the most consequential. Get it wrong and you're looking at chronic maintenance problems, energy inefficiency, or a roof that fights your design at every turn. Get it right and it becomes invisible, which is exactly what a good roof should be.

This guide covers the three main residential roof types — flat, double-pitched, and mono-pitched — with a focus on what actually drives the decision: climate, budget, and the building itself.