Minimum zoning standards for DT

[SW MI Planner]

Anyone have examples of a zoning ordinance that use minimum height standards for downtowns?

We're looking at doing this in Coldwater. Our DT is about 6 blocks in size, and primarily have 2 story buildings with a few 3 stories thrown in.

 

[Jeff]

Damn lots of them. How low do you want the buildings to be. You need to be sure to match the height restrictions with fire/bldg codes in the area.

You're max height should not be more than 10' less than the height of the ladder truck your fire department uses, unless you have a bldg code which requires stanpipes above 3 stories or so.

 

[SW MI Planner]

The intent is to prevent one story infill development between 2 or 3 story buildings.

 

[SGB]

I'm not really sure why you need example codes.

You know what you want to accomplish - just add the minimum building height requirement to your area requirements table.

 

[donk]

May need some wordsmithing,

Minimum height of new buildings, as viewed from the street, shall not be lower then the existing height of the adjacent building with the lowest height.

The face of the front facade of the building shall contain an amount of usable openings (ie windows) in an amount equal to the propoportion of opeings on the adjacent buildings.

The reason for the second clause is to prevent someone from "wrecking" the flow and pattern of second and third storey windows by erecting a blank wall.

It is slow here today, I'll do some hunting for you.

EDIT - cleaned up some typos, sorry.

 

[SW MI Planner]

Awww! Thanks Donk

We don't have a requirement table, so it's not that easy... we're kind of behind the times.

 

[donk]

Can't tell that I think about this stuff frequently.

I may have to include a section like this in our By-law during teh next round of revisions.