It’s the Monday after we heard on Friday that our offer was accepted and today kicks off our Feasibility Study. Although Lance and I had done a lot of research over the past couple of weeks, I really got organized in my research and studied the information I had found.

Size & Terrain
I mentioned before that the property is a whopping 5.09 acres. Yes, that’s huge…and realistically much too large for Joel and me. I can’t imagine doing that much mowing! But the majority of the land is still wooded, and near the back of the property there’s a wetland. So, with the wetland, plus the required wetland buffer, there’s really only about 1.3 acres that’s cleared and usable. This is just fine by us! The property taxes have already been reduced to take into account the unusable wetland + buffer area as well. So, we have 1.3 acres to work with.

The front of the property has a bit of a slope and then it levels off towards the back. Immediately this makes me think of a home with a basement to fully take advantage of the property. Either that or we could run the driveway down the slope to the house and having the entire yard level. But all of that is letting me get ahead of myself. There’s still a lot of feasibility work that needs to be done before we can think about putting a house on it…although it is fun to think about. 

Past Owner’s Plans
Back in 2007, the previous owner had submitted plans for a 5,500 square foot 4-bedroom home. Absolutely huge. But knowing that our home would be well under that square footage gives me a good vibe that it can be built on. The neighboring homes area also all over 4,000 square feet which does make me think that our home can be built and that we won’t be overbuilding for the neighborhood. The great thing is that since there was already a home proposed to be built on the property, King County already has some information about the lot.

Utilities
Power, cable – check, check. The property has these utilities underground and in the street fronting the property. But what about the two most important utilities – water & sewer?
There was no waterline that runs to the property – so that means that we’ll need a well to get water. Researched showed that we’ll need our own private well as that is what the surrounding properties all had. Ok, that could be doable. Annoying – but doable….and it means that we wouldn’t have a water bill in the future.

And as for sewer – nope, no sewer either – we’ll have to put in a septic system. This is common around the eastside, especially for rural areas or older neighborhoods.

After researching further I found the Site Design Application to the Health Department. This shows both the well location and the drainfield design for the property. The drainfield takes up about half of the back yard, which is fine since we’re planning on keeping it grass for the boys to play on anyhow. And this design is for the 5,500 square foot home so it will be reduced once we do the design for our smaller home. The well has a 100’ radius that is located within the wetland buffer area and partially on the adjacent property to the north. I have no idea why the well is located in the adjacent parcel. I’m assuming that it’s because of the proximity to the drainfield location. I really won’t know until after we talk with Dave Huard from Huard Septic Design & Monitoring who did the original septic design.

It’s great to know that the Public Health Department approved the site plan back in August 2006, that definitely gives us a great starting point for the property. However, King County DPED will still have to approve the site plan because of the Sensitive Areas.