For $20,000, Let's Make A Deal -- Builder Would Pay Neighbors To Let Him Finish

Twenty thousand dollars would pay for a heck of a block party.

But the Green Lake-Craven Neighborhood Association isn't in a partying mood.

That's because to get the money, the neighborhood group would have to drop its appeal to the city against a developer who wants to finish building side-by-side narrow houses on two undersized lots on their street.

But Seattle developer Chris Pickering says it's worth his sanity to avoid the aggravation and further costly delays to try to settle with angry neighbors who say the houses are out of character with their own and could set a negative precedent for other neighborhoods.

Pickering even described his offer in a letter to the office of the Seattle hearing examiner, where the lot-variance appeal is scheduled to be heard March 7, "so there wouldn't be any misunderstandings."

There's none as far as Tom McDonald is concerned. "We still don't want two houses there," the neighborhood-association president said.

As long as the neighbors can remember, only one house sat on the two lots at 749 and 753 N. 68th St. in the Craven division near the lake.

Each lot, platted at the beginning of the century, is about 3,720 square feet, much smaller than the present single-family zone minimum of 5,000 square feet. In those days, it was not uncommon for people to buy two such lots for one house.

But in more recent years developers sometimes tore down old houses on small, dual lots and put skinny houses on each. Skinny houses aren't popular with many residents, who say they just don't fit with traditional homes.

In the mid-1980s, the city revised its zoning ordinance to allow the Department of Construction and Land Use to refuse such skinny-house applications - except by variance - if the existing dwelling occupies both lots.

The old house on North 68th Street was almost entirely on one lot - except, as neighbors later showed in photographs to DCLU, for an entry porch, added afterward, that poked over onto the other lot.

A year ago, a construction firm bought the two lots and house for $62,000 and tore down a detached garage and the porch. Pickering bought the properties a few months later for $130,000 after the city granted a permit to demolish the house.

When a survey showed the porch had been less than a foot over the lot line, DCLU issued a building permit for the western lot. Pickering put up a $275,000 three-story, three-bedroom, single-family residence of about 2,500 square feet, with a two-car garage on the first floor. He also got a permit for the second house and laid its foundation.

Since then, the project has been like a ball in everyone's court.

After the neighbors insisted the second house wasn't permitted because the original house's porch put it on both lots, DCLU revoked the permit. So Pickering applied for a variance to complete it. The variance was granted despite the opposition (of 20 letters filed with DCLU, only four favored the development).

But now the neighborhood group's appeal to the hearing examiner has stalled work on the second dwelling.

The first house probably won't be torn down. But neighbors would like to see plans for the second house abandoned and the foundation removed.

If they lose their appeal, the neighbors are considering going to court, McDonald said.

For his part, Pickering says the whole affair is "the funniest thing I've been involved in," if it weren't for the inconvenience and cost.

The neighbors are angry because of the way DCLU has handled the matter. But Pickering says the staff people "are only human, too."

Cliff Portman, DCLU's land-use review section manager, said the agency doesn't have the staff or resources to verify everything presented in applications.

"That's why neighbors and others are extremely helpful," Portman said. "We visit sites, take pictures and do records research, but it's hard to know . . ." He said there was no record of a permit for the porch in this case, for example.

Until the appeal and possible court actions are sorted out, Pickering is renting out the finished house.