By Gary Massaro
Greenwood Village has amended its building code from the ground up.
That doesn’t mean the City Council has done a complete rewrite of the code. It means the Council has addressed what has become a problem – where to start measuring to determine eventual height of residential and commercial buildings.
Council amended the code at its meeting June 7.
“The ordinance we passed was not about measuring the top of a structure but about measuring the bottom of the structure,” said Councilman Jerry Presley. “We changed the base from the 1965 USGS survey to a more accurate 1998 survey.”
The older map is based on 10-foot countours, meaning that the elevation changed in 10-foot intervals. The 1998 map – done with aerial photography – is based on 2-foot-wide intervals between countours.
“The main difference, though, is that most of the development in the Village has occurred after the ’65 survey was done and over-lot grading has changed the lay of the land from when the Arapahoe Indians lived here,” Presley said. “A development may be re-graded so that the ground may be 5 feet higher or 5 feet lower than the ’65 map. That means that the actual height of a house, which is allowed to be 28 feet, may be allowed to be 33 feet from existing grade or may be restricted to no more than 23 feet. It depends on the difference between the actual grade that exists today vs. the grade as shown on one of the two maps.”
Some residents who planned to remodel homes learned the hard way that they would violate a height restriction because the city had depended on topographic measurements from 1965.
“Our code needs to be fixed,” Councilman Gary Kleeman said.
The amendment won’t take place until 2013.
So until the end of 2012, applicants can choose from the following to determine existing grade: The city’s 1998 countour map, the 1965 U.S. Geological Survey maps, or a grading plan approved by the city.
Beginning in 2013, grade will be determined by a grading plan or the 1998 contours. If no grading plan was submitted, the building height will be determined by the 1998 figures. If a grading plan is submitted, height will be based on an average of four measurements at the corners of the site where the building will be built, not the entire lot.
————
reporter@villagerpublishing.com
