Quote:
Originally Posted by fairviewdude
I am living next to one of those type of densifications you mention. A 60+ yo house on a double lot was torn down and 2 duplexes are being constructed-very slowly. All I see is a monstrousity looming over the street, with all three levels above ground.
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That's one of the problems though and rightly pointed out.
In Calgary, as the new land use bylaw was being developed - the same issue came up. You had communities where the typical house was a bungalow and new houses being proposed were going up to 3 stories (up to the maximum 10m allowable height) and then it would be a battle of policy with planners and the appeal board to see who would win out. It was very up in the air.
So the planning dept came up with this idea that the context of the surrounding homes should dictate how tall your house could be and how far forward you could come (because with new development; they wanted to encourage houses to creep forward - so that backyards could be bigger). So if you had two bungalows on either side; you typically came out on the low end of the height range and then if you had a mix, you came out in the middle.
This was called the 'contextual building height average' which was basically:
height of Building A + height of building B/2 + 1.5 (to allow an increase) = your height.
(building a and b - being the neighbouring buildings).
So if the two buildings were both 5m tall, you ended up with a max height of 7.5m. But since 7.5 was still a bit shore; the height range was set with a base number. So if you ended up with 7.5 through the formula, your maximum automatically because 8.6m (since that is the base height).
So the rule read like this:
The maximum height of a single detached dwelling is:
(a) 8.6m; or
(b) the
contextual building height average to a maximum of 10.0m.
So no matter what - you were guarenteed 8.6m, but depending on context you could go up to 10m. Sounds pretty simplistic - but it has turned out to be quite difficult to administrate. In order to be accurate with the numbers, a surveyor must shoot the geodetic elevation of each neighbouring home from grade - so we can find out the height. That's hugely expensive. With a zoning system; the box is pre-set so when you end up in an older home - these buildings seem to tower over them. One thing that could be done is the 3rd levels could be forced to be set in. This breaks up the massing of the wall.