What you will make

A site-claim evidence table and a short marketing-copy revision showing supported claims and unresolved questions.

A location map or attractive brochure does not establish buildable acreage, usable access, available utility capacity, or a readiness designation.

• Distinguish site-marketing statements from documented physical and infrastructure conditions.
• Identify evidence needed to investigate pads, access, utilities, and environmental conditions.
• Revise copy without inventing usable acreage, capacity, certification, or as-built conditions.

Work through the method

1. List the proposed site claims

   Select up to five statements from supplied material, such as available pad area, highway access, water service, electrical service, or readiness status. Record each statement verbatim with its source and date. Do not assume that Red Onion has any of these conditions because they appear in this exercise.

   Check your work: The table separates supplied claims from facts independently established.

2. Investigate the land and pad

   Seek a dated boundary or topographic survey, relevant geotechnical information, and a constraints map. Distinguish total parcel acreage from usable pad area. Record area units and the document's definition of usable land. Aerial imagery can help locate questions but cannot establish finished grading or as-built conditions.

   Check your work: Any acreage or pad statement has an identified technical source, or remains unresolved.

3. Investigate usable access and utilities

   Check access routes and utility documentation. For roads, distinguish mapped proximity from usable access and required improvements. For utilities, seek provider evidence of service location, capacity for the proposed demand, extension needs, cost, and timing. Record feet, miles, gallons per day, kilowatts, or other units exactly as the source gives them.

   Check your work: Nearby infrastructure is not reported as confirmed available service or capacity.

4. Check due diligence and readiness evidence

   Use VEDP's July 2026 characterization guidance to organize the review. Seek an actual characterization report and confirming designation record before repeating a tier claim. EPA's assessment guidance explains professional Phase I and possible Phase II work; a student source review does not establish contamination status or environmental clearance.

   Check your work: The table distinguishes a document found, a finding it supports, and a missing assessment.

5. Revise a small piece of marketing copy

   Create columns for claim, supporting record, date, units, evidence limit, and next confirmation. Rewrite a short paragraph using only supported findings. Keep unresolved items out of affirmative marketing statements and list them for instructor review. Publication remains a separate approved action.

   Check your work: The revised paragraph makes no unsupported readiness, design, capacity, or as-built claim.

Optional practice: review five site-marketing claims

1. Select up to five claims from instructor-approved site material.
2. Connect each claim to a technical or administrative record and record its date and units.
3. Identify missing evidence for usable pad area, access, utilities, and due diligence.
4. Rewrite one marketing paragraph and prepare questions for instructor review. This optional practice is not a class grade or official Canvas assignment and does not authorize publication.

Bring the method into a product

• Site-claim evidence table
• Revised marketing paragraph
• Unresolved-document and confirmation list

Suggested formats: CSV, PDF, DOCX.

Reflect: Which attractive marketing statement became less certain when you examined the supporting record, and how did you revise it?

Avoid these mistakes

• Reporting gross parcel acreage as usable pad acreage.
• Treating a nearby road or utility line as proof of usable access or available capacity.
• Assigning a readiness tier or claiming engineered, as-built, or environmentally cleared conditions without the appropriate records.