To cope with that grade change you'll need to excavate down about 1.5 - 2 feet, and probably will need a low retaining wall next to the new driveway area. I think you will have to remove the tree in order to do this. Do you plan on building another garage stall, or is this just for additional parking?

I take it your are widening 9' min. to the right side of existing drive...? And I think you mean that the tree is 12' from the R. edge of drive...? Then I concur w/ E...Chic that you will need to remove the tree (you wouldn't want a tree that close to edge of drive even if it would live) and probably a low retaining wall is in order. If R. wall not desired, you would need to regrade back into lawn area with steeper slope... which I see as less desirable.

Also, I don't think its a japanese maple.

We can't see the whole front of your house, but, if this is just for parking, have you considered expanding towards the front door instead? The money you would save from not needing to remove the tree and adding a retaining wall could be put towards incorporating an attractive stamped design or paver insets in the driveway material. Even if it were to be left plain, it doesn't look as the view would be blocked from any main windows.

acharles, is that the street we see in the lower right, or a driveway turn-around? If the latter, how about expanding it towards the maple, but not that far (ideally not much past the tree's dripline)?

If that is a turn-around, how far is it to the tree? Could you post a photo showing that entire area, including where the yard meets the street?

Sorry, I was referencing the direction looking at the street, but the picture was looking at the house.

Based on the picture, I want to extend the driveway to the right. It was going to be for additional parking.

I figured the tree would have to go, but I was hoping otherwise. Thanks for your input.

Off with its head if you want the rubber to meet the road... err umm I mean the driveway.

...or widening the driveway equally on both sides giving it some balance, saving the tree, minimizing the height of the needed retaining wall saving money and a more pleasing result. IMHO.

I discovered that if a picture is already on the web, you can R. click on it, choose "inspect element" and when it pops up, the html code for the picture is already selected. You only have to copy it and then, paste it in your message for it to appear on the post. No uploading to your photo-hosting site necessary. That's if it's ALREADY on the web.

{{gwi:53858}}

It's "View image info" in Firefox -- and IIRC, that same term in whatever old edition of IE I used to use years ago.

But if I understand you correctly, you're hot-linking the photo. Unfortunately, whenever your post with that photo is accessed, it uses the bandwidth of the original site.

In a thread about acharles's driveway, it makes sense to use acharles's photo (though redundant) and acharles's bandwidth. But in other circumstances it's bad manners to add to someone else's bandwidth cost, and a simple link is preferable.

A canny website owner will use software which prevents hotlinking -- generally replacing the image with a rude notice (which being smaller and simpler, uses much less bandwidth); you've probably seen some of those but didn't know what they were. A less knowledgeable site owner, overwhelmed by unexpectedly large bandwidth charges, may just close the site.

http://www.webweaver.nu/html-tips/hotlinking.shtml