How tall should a house be?
People who read an article in last Monday’s Oak Ridger have been asking me “what’s this about the height of houses?”
Since the article apparently was confusing, I’ll try to provide the whole story here.
The city planning staff presented a comprehensive revision of the city’s zoning ordinance for residential districts. After being passed by the Planning Commission, it went to City Council for two “readings” in August and September. The proposal is on the city website as a .doc file and in the PDF version of the City Council agenda.
One major theme of the changes was to relax restrictions on house size, setbacks, etc., to make the zoning ordinance more friendly to developers of new subdivisions. However, the same zoning regulations that apply in new subdivisions also apply in existing neighborhoods — and zoning rules are one of the things that people rely on to help ensure that a homeowner’s neighbors won’t make changes that harm the value of their own properties.
In reviewing the proposal, I kept asking myself (and staff) “How will this affect existing established neighborhoods?” I was thinking, if a house burns down and is replaced, or if a long-vacant lot is finally developed, will new (bigger) houses adversely affect the neighbors’ quality or life or reduce the value of existing homes? This is not purely hypothetical — disruption of neighborhoods by “mansionization” (building of homes on a much larger scale than the rest of the neighborhood) has become a big issue in some other parts of the country. I figure it’s better to avoid conflict by not relaxing standards in the first place than to try to fix neighborhoods later on after they’ve been disrupted.
Staff convinced me that most of the proposed changes would not be detrimental to established neighborhoods. They pointed out that a new larger home up the street tends to raise the value of the other homes on the street, not reduce them. Also, the changes in setback distances were mostly modest reductions in Oak Ridge’s generous rear-yard setbacks, and they would not noticeably diminish most people’s privacy.
However, I was not convinced about the proposed change in the maximum height of a house in single-family residential zones — from 35 ft to 40 ft. According to staff, taller houses are needed because ceilings are higher than they used to be, multi-story houses need space between floors for HVAC ducts, etc., and steeply pitched roofs are now in fashion. In a typical Oak Ridge neighborhood of one-story homes, I think the addition of a 40-ft-tall house (this is the typical height of a 3-story or 3-1/2-story commercial building) would be very disruptive. (Thirty-five feet also could be “too tall,” but that rule was already in place.)
I asked about making the new rules apply only to newly platted areas, but was told that couldn’t be done — zoning regulations must be uniform across the district. That’s when I started wondering whether the new height limit is truly needed. I asked my sister (a residential architect in Colorado) to help me understand the need for taller houses, and to my surprise she told me that all the jurisdictions she works in (places like Aspen, Colorado) are more restrictive than our current ordinance. With that info, and after searching Google for height limits in other cities and counties, I concluded that the 35-foot height limit should not be a problem for new development. Few jurisdictions that have height limits in feet for single-family residential zones set the limit any higher than 35 feet, and some have more restrictive limits. The 35-ft limit (measured from the ground to the midpoint of the rooflines) is ample to allow a 3-story building (or a 2-story building with a full walk-out basement). Additionally, I figured that property owners in R-1 zones should be able to seek variances for steep lots on which the 35-ft limit would pose a special hardship.
After all that, at the Sept. 22 Council meeting I proposed to amend the new zoning ordinance to change the “Maximum Height in Feet” for the R-1-A, R-1-B, and R-1-C zoning districts from 40 feet to 35 feet. My amendment failed by a 4-3 vote (Tom Hayes and Dave Mosby agreed with me, but Charlie Hensley spoke out regarding the need to accommodate 3-story houses with steep-pitched peaked roofs, and the other Council members apparently agreed with Charlie). However, Council voted unanimously to ask the Planning Commission to look into measures to ensure that existing neighborhoods are protected with respect to height limits.
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Nice work Ellen. You are correct to think a zoning requirement of 5ft. more is very important for adjoining lots. One group I haven’t heard from is the ability to fight a fire in the home that is 5ft. taller. I would believe the additional height would make it more difficult.
Comment by Ray Kircher — October 6, 2008 @ 6:08 am
Since Oak Ridge has several commercial buildings taller than 40 ft, it stands to reason that the ORFD has equipment to reach taller buildings, but I wasn’t sure if this was true at all of the fire stations. I asked the planning staff whether they had consulted with the fire department about the height limit. They told me they had consulted on it, and that the 40-ft height was not a problem. I did not contact the fire department to verify this.
Comment by Ellen Smith — October 6, 2008 @ 8:35 am
I understand a problem isn’t one until it pops up its ugly head. I support your concerns if Oak Ridge is able to withstand our homes to tower 40ft. above our heads. I disagree with our city staff that a problem doesn’t exist. What I asked is it more difficult to contain a fire in a residential district with homes that are 5ft. taller and another level of finished space?
What I see as the value in this zoning change is to let commercial developers creep into residential communities by allowing 40ft. structures. In my experience 40ft. structures are mostly commercial buildings with commercial setbacks, roads, and access. By allowing the extra 5ft. I believe will start the conversion of residential lots to become commercial lots due to the height restriction being eased. Without upgrading all zoning requirements to allow safety to prevail in a community like setbacks, roads and access, and available parking and fire zones, we are setting up either a more difficult fire to fight or a commercial developer to purchase lots at residential rates and then easily change over the zoning to commercial since his height requirement is already met.
Comment by Ray Kircher — October 9, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
Commercial uses are still not permitted in residential zoning districts, with a few very limited exceptions.
Comment by Ellen Smith — October 9, 2008 @ 2:40 pm