A big excavator suddenly appeared this morning and quickly got to work on clearing the long-vacant lot at 814 22nd Ave.   They’re preparing the site for a new single family house, designed by local architect David Foster.  You may recognize his work from two other properties on that block, at 822 22nd and next door to that at 2201 E. Marion.  The latter property is the only house in the CD that I ever recall seeing in Pacific Northwest Magazine.

The house will be a 2-story structure with a daylight basement and a total of about 2,500 square feet of space.

One of the problems I have with new single family houses in the neighborhood are the garages.  The city requires off-street parking for all new construction (boooooo!), and on our narrow lots that usually means that the whole front of the house ends up being an ugly, unfriendly garage door.   But in this case, the architect is getting around that by purchasing an easement from the property to the north, which he’ll use to create a shared driveway and move the parking to a spot in the backyard.  It seems like a win-win:  the northern neighbor gets some cash and an off-street parking space, and everyone else in the neighborhood gets a more pedestrian-friendly house instead of the blank wall of a garage.