I was recently trying to make room on a particular street in my neighborhood. Some lots were divided by a slight terrain elevation difference. So I vacated the street by moving all the lots elsewhere, temporarily. Then I temporarily placed a large community lot in the area to 'flatten' the terrain difference. All went fine and the lots went back in place beside each other, except for the corner lot. So I tried to do the same thing for the corner lot. Now the terrain behind the street, (the backyard area?), has a hill there, and the whole side of the street cannot have any lots placed there anymore... Is there anything I can do, short of re-installing the neighborhood from a backup?
Worth mentioning: I have only the first 2 EPs.

If you have a back-up, you can restore the original terrain by using Mootilda's hood replace. That should enable you to move the lots back, but it obviously doesn't resolve your uneven terrain 'tween the lots issue. You might want to try lot adjuster for that.

However, Mootilda is THE expert in this and very helpful in discussion, so rather than taking immediate action, you might want to wait a bit for her to respond with advice on how best to handle the situation.

The problem is you need completely flat lots to sit side by side. If the edge of the lot is deformed then it will always deform the neighbourhood terrain. And when the edges of lots don't match, you can't place one of them. Sounds like your corner lot has this problem. The only real alternative is a rebuild.

You could use the terrain tool cheat if you have the corresponding EP for it.

There are a number of possibilities.

1) Since you don't have FreeTime or later, share your neighborhood package with someone who does. They can flatten the area using the neighborhood terrain cheats and give you back the updated neighborhood package. Then, use HoodReplace to copy the fixed terrain into your original neighborhood.

2) If you have the SC4 file, you (or someone else) can use SimCity 4 to flatten the area. Then, create a temporary neighborhood with the updated terrain and use HoodReplace to put that updated terrain into your original neighborhood.

3) Use the LotAdjuster to expand a lot into the uneven area, and to flatten the lot edges. When you edit the lot, the terrain changes should be transferred to the neighborhood. If you then shrink the lot back to its original size, the neighborhood terrain should be fixed.

4) Lot edges do not need to be flat to place two lots side-by-side. They just need to match. Therefore, you can place several lots further along the street, then use the LotAdjuster to move the lots into position and adjust their edges to match the uneven neighborhood terrain.

As always, be sure to backup before you try any of these, in case they don't do what you want.

Ok, lots to think about. Never had this problem before. I do have sc4, so I think I'll try that one first. Thanks for all the help.

Let me know if you're still having problems. I'm sure that we can solve this.

Ok. My initial problem was not being able to place lots side by side due to elevation problems. I wanted to flatten out the terrain. Somehow I managed to mess it all up, and no house could be placed on that street anymore.
I decided to use the lot adjuster to see if I could help flatten out the terrain in the area, but I could not 'snap' the lot to the road afterwards. In the end, the terrain became more 'pliable' after I fiddled with the lot adjuster. I successfully placed (and moved about) a large commercial lot, and all the terrain on the street was flat and raised slightly. All the lots went back in place, side by side. So in the end, I got what I wanted and all is well in Crystal Springs. I'll read up more on the Lot Adjuster, and keep experimenting with it. Thanks Mootilda and happy simming.