• Ongoing coronavirus / COVID-19 discussion: how is the pandemic affecting your community, workplace, and wellness? 🦠

    Working from home? So are we. Come join us! Cyburbia is a friendly big tent, where we share our experiences and thoughts about urban planning practice, planning adjacent topics, and whatever else comes to mind. No ads, no spam, no social distancing.

Measuring building height

P

Patricia Nilsson

Member
Messages
4
Points
0
A colleague thinks we should be using the UBC formula for measuring building height for zoning compliance, but I think a simpler method would work better for the planner at the zoning counter. I would be interested in hearing any of your experiences in calculating building height.
 
Dan

Dan

Dear Leader
Staff member
Moderator
Messages
18,747
Points
69
In zoning administration, I always used a formula to determine the base elevation that would be used in measuring height. It went something like ...

Lowest point building grade + highest point of building grade / 2
 
Otis

Otis

Cyburbian
Messages
5,169
Points
29
We use the height from the finished grade to the top of the highest point on the building (except for elevator shafts, chimneys, other uninhabitable spaces), measured at the center of all four sides, summed, and divided by four. We did have one guy try to convince us that he needed a 20-foot high pile of dirt against his building at the center of one side. Now we use "normal" finished grade. It's sort of a straight-face test.
 
Top