My wife and I are getting ready to buy an acre of land (blue box) on the edge town (population 8,700) and are trying to decide how to lay out the place. We have a double wide that is 28’x72’, and the acre is only 100’ wide. Being that we are in New Mexico I would rather not place the long side facing South. There owner to the north is highly unlikely to sell any of the land to increase the width. The owner of the easement and everything south and West may sell, but it would cut into the easement, so i unsure how likely that would be. So i am planning on the likelyhood of this being all the property we will have.
Are there minimum setbacks from the property line? 72’ long house should fit the 100’ width unless the setback is pretty large. What are you having trouble deciding?
If you want, and can, orient the house N-S, you only need to decide how big you want the front and back yard to be. What’s the view to the west? I can’t imagine you’d want to BBQ looking at your neighbors to the east even if you house was all the way on the west side of the property. Maybe you want the house more to the east and have a nice back yard patio to look into the desert (I’m guessing), maybe put in a pool someday (is there enough water in NM for a pool? Lol)? You don’t want a pool on the street side or near your neighbors.
You could could angle the house if you can’t fit it into the 100’ width in a N-S orientation, but I would orient it in the NE\SW so the morning sun hits the long side of the house and the evening\setting sun has a smaller profile to hit.