Can't place community lots?

In addition to having an empty lot already on the map that is at least the size of the one you are trying to place, the commercial lot types have to match. You cannot, for example, place a pre-made Arcade (ie, bowling alley) onto an empty lot typed as a Dance Club.

Does that help or have you already made sure that the commercial lot types match?

Try building on the lot (just a couple walls), exiting to edit town, and bulldozing the lot once. Then see if you can place your lot down.

I know this is an old thread, but I'm responding to @DJMIXMASTER 's post from a few days ago.

First, check the lot is genuinely recognised by the game as empty: change it to a residential lot, and if the icon you get looks like a house then you need to use the bulldoze tool on it. If the icon looks like an blank rhombus then it's already empty.

Next, change the lot back to a community. If you still can't place the build, try changing the zoning of the lot to 'Visitors Allowed' or 'No Visitors Allowed'. You'd think you'd have to change it to match whatever your build is zoned as, but for some reason that doesn't work for me: it has to be VA or NVA.
The lot type should change to the appropriate zoning (dive bar, park, whatever) automatically when you place your build. If it doesn't, you can do that yourself after placing.

Best of luck.

Sometimes what I've seen is that homeless NPCs set up camp on empty lots and that's why they get the house icon. This also can occur when something has spawned there like a rock or minor pet.

Save your game, then bulldoze as Greencats suggests and then you should be able to place your lot. (I like to save because occasionally I miscalculate and there goes the entire lot, which you can't always replace if the routing goes all wonky).

What I do to avoid losing a lot that may need bulldozing before I can place anything on it is to select the lot in Edit Town and choose "build." Once I'm there, I select the hammer tool, and drag it over the entire lot, from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner. If there is anything hidden there, you'll see the flash of light when it's deleted.

I just had the same problem in the most recent CAW world I made. I had a vacant 64x64 community lot, and couldn't place anything on it. I even went into build mode and dragged the hammer tool over the entire world, but there was no flash of light indicating that something had been deleted. So I used the wall tool the make a room, went back into Edit Town, and bulldozed the lot. That took care of the issue, and I was able to place a lot there. This is the first time dragging the hammer tool over a lot didn't work for me.

This thread is very helpful!
Thanks to everyone here, especially @ChelleJo and @GreenCats for your wonderful solutions. :)

Steps I did (combined method):

1) Change Lot Type to Residential
2) Build some random walls
3) Edit Town, Bulldoze lot
4) Change Lot Type to Community, Visitors Allowed
5) Place Community lot

Hope it helps! :)

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igazor wrote:
In addition to having an empty lot already on the map that is at least the size of the one you are trying to place, the commercial lot types have to match. You cannot, for example, place a pre-made Arcade (ie, bowling alley) onto an empty lot typed as a Dance Club.

Does that help or have you already made sure that the commercial lot types match?

Did that when I googled the issue before, but I've never had to make sure the lot type matched; just that the lot was the correct size.

But, no, changing the lot type doesn't work.

wow i got the same problem , what do i do now how to i place them on the lot, not quite shure what was the category of the lot! help what i do