Predevelopment command center · Milwaukee-first
The deal desk for the developer the big tools forgot.
Cited zoning answers, money-linked deadlines, and an honest proforma — from a city RFP to a credible proposal in one sitting. No analyst team required.
Every zoning answer is cited — and traceable to the source.
The wedge
Built for institutions. We built it for you.
The industry standard, Argus, runs $3,000–$5,000 a seat — six figures for a firm — and assumes you have an analyst team. But most of the housing that actually reshapes a neighborhood comes from small infill developers doing 8-to-40-unit projects, stuck doing predevelopment in PDFs and spreadsheets. PencilOut is the command center priced and designed for them — citation-defensible and deadline-aware in ways the incumbents aren’t.
What it does
Four questions, answered in one sitting
What can I build here?
Ask a zoning question in plain English. Every answer carries citations — traceable to the city code and to your own uploaded documents. An answer with no source is flagged, never invented.
What deadlines can cost me money?
Enter your anchor dates and PencilOut back-plans the money-linked deadlines — option periods, deposit hard dates, close — into a countdown so nothing expensive sneaks up on you.
Does it pencil?
Source-backed assumptions in low / base / high ranges and an honest feasibility verdict — including the one number most likely to sink the deal. It stops you chasing a bad deal.
How do I prove it?
Generate audience-targeted updates and a shareable project package, so you can hand a partner, a lender, or the city a credible, sourced summary.
The workflow
How it works
- 1
Anchor the site
Search Milwaukee parcels by address or TAXKEY and assemble them into one project.
- 2
Upload your documents
Drop the RFP packet, design guidelines, or title work. PencilOut indexes them in seconds.
- 3
Ask what you can build
Get a cited zoning answer that pulls from the city code library and your own files.
- 4
Track the money dates
Set anchor dates; PencilOut builds the backward-planned, money-linked deadline checklist.
- 5
See if it pencils
Run the napkin or the feasibility verdict against source-backed assumptions.
- 6
Share the package
Generate a stakeholder update or a project package to hand to partners and the city.
One database doing four jobs
Built on a single Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL instance.
Relational data, pgvector for cited answers, PostGIS for 160,000 Milwaukee parcels, and fuzzy address search— with row-level security keeping every developer’s deals isolated inside the database. One query joins your project, your documents, and the city code, securely.