Private Town Community Development Services

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The Marranos Group Real Estate Development firm offers town development services to private town purchasers seeking to develop their own towns. Our  mission is to offer our consultation services with working with planning departments to provide planning direction to town ownerships to ensure the quality of private development in the community and build and preserve the Town's infrastructure.

The Marranos Group Real Estate Development firm services offers multiple divisions that provide a broad range of technical expertise and support to advance residential and commercial projects from design to construction. 

It also provides administrative support to several land-use boards and commissions and serves as the link between the Town and its residents by providing public information through the use of a variety of communication tools. The Department is also responsible for designing and constructing the Town's streets, sidewalks and bridges.

The Marranos Group Real Estate Development offers infrastructure; construction development; contractors; landscaping services; the Department is organized into the following divisions. Under each section you will find detailed information on services, applications, fees and permits.

Private towns, kind of like special economic zones, often have their own sets of rules which often run perpendicular to the laws of the nations they are geographically located within. They are essentially legal wild cards—a swath of land purchased by a private company that can be run as that company sees fit. 

 How to Start your Own Town

Can you start a new town in America? The answer is yes you can start a new town but you'll have to comply with the applicable state law since the new town will be a subdivision of the state. The downside is the town once chartered by the state would also have to comply with the applicable federal regulations and mandates.

First Buy Land, Get to know the neighbors. Though each state has its own rules on “municipal incorporation,” in general you’ll need to get 51 percent of the eligible voters in the area to go along with you. (It’s easiest to start a town from scratch, as opposed to by secession; most upstarts begin as “unincorporated communities” within a larger county.) In 2000, Clark hired a surveyor to draw up boundaries for a town that would be a little bigger than a square mile and would include 254 people—of whom only 65 were registered to vote. To found Clark, Texas, he had to convince only a few dozen neighbors it was a good idea.

To incorporate a town, you’ll need a lawyer who can handle the paperwork. Once you’ve decided on where to put your town, the first step toward the city in which you would like to Incorporate;  to get a petition signed by some of the people who live there. In Texas, you’ll need 10 percent of the voters. In Arkansas, you need to get 75 signatures, no matter how big your town is going to be.

An application for forming a town includes the signed petition, a proposed name, and—in some cases—a proposed form of government. There are four basic town governments to choose from—mayor-council, council-manager, commission, or representative town meeting—but some states’ laws limit your options depending on the size of your community. Once you complete your application, all you typically need is a “yes” vote from your neighbors and the approval of a county judge or state official. In some places, though, a town charter must be granted by vote of the state legislature.

Depending on where you live, you may face certain restrictions on your right to incorporate. Your proposed town may need to have a minimum number of people, for example, or it may need to be a minimum distance from other towns and cities. The description of where it is should be very specific—for an example, take a look at the charter-specified boundaries of Danbury, Conn. And some states will expect your town to have a unique name, so think again if you wanted to use “Fairview” or “Midway.”

An unincorporated community gets its services from the county without paying municipal taxes, so frivolous town-founding can be a bad idea. Why might you want to incorporate? First, you could be heading off annexation by a nearby city. The residents of what is now DISH, Texas were afraid of being annexed by Fort Worth. If their land had become part of the city, they’d have faced the high property taxes used to cover social services in less affluent areas. Second, unincorporated communities have very little control over what gets built in the area. But towns can control their own zoning—and thereby protect their property values.