If you find yourself on the 2000 block of E. Susquehanna at some point in the near future, a zoning notice at 2050 E. Susquehanna Ave. might just catch your eye. This vacant lot sits immediately next door to a relatively new home and has a couple more empty lots in the other direction. Seems like a no brainer for redevelopment, given all the construction we’ve seen in this area over the last few years, no?

It’s such a no brainer, the zoning notice seems entirely superfluous. So what’s going on here? Taking a peek at the zoning notice only added to our confusion. The owners are looking to build a new home at 2050 E. Susquehanna Ave. and two more homes on the lots next door. The properties are zoned for single-family use, so the zoning application is just a simple matter of lot line relocation. And that’s exactly what’s going on here. 2050 E. Susquehanna Ave. is quite skinny, a little less than 13′ wide. The two properties next door are considerably wider, each stretching 17′ from side to side.

So the owners of the property are seemingly widening the littlest lot and shrinking the bigger lots to make three lots with relatively normal widths. The new lots, we suspect, will each be a little more than 15.5′ wide, which is half a foot below the minimum lot width required by the zoning code. Hence the zoning notice and the additional months of costs and uncertainty for the developers. Truly, this is a fine example of a minimal dimensional variance and wouldn’t you know it, the developers got approved last week. Ah, the joys of the technical details of the zoning code!

Soon enough, the developers will get to work building three new homes here, and these new homes will fit in nicely with the collection of other new homes that have risen on this block over the last several years. These homes have sold at prices in the high $300K to high $400K range, depending on the size of the home and the timing of the construction. Figure these homes will sell for over $400K when it’s all said and done.

Looking back at what was happening on this block in 2008, all this new construction is really incredible. By our count, this block has already seen almost 20 new homes or total rehabs in the last decade, and at least three more are on the horizon. We wish we could say we predicted this, but we didn’t think anything like this was in store for this part of town. Had we known, you can be sure we’d have built most of these homes ourselves!