Limiting Building Heights

Progress, Volume XI, Issue 5, 1 January 1916, Page 522

Limiting Building Heights

The city of Winnipeg has just adopted a by-law limiting the height of buildings. Its provisions were formulated by a joint committee representing a number of organisations, architectural, town planning, real estate, and building, and it was passed without opposition from any quarter. It provides that no building shall exceed one and three-quarters times the width of the street, nor in any case be more than one hundred and ninety-eight feet high, nor contain more than twelve stories. Cornices, roofs and parapets are included in these heights, but the roof may be covered with a roof garden, and pent houses, etc., one story high, set back twenty feet from the street, may cover twenty-five per cent, of the roof area. Towers, with restrictions as to area and position, may be three hundred feet high. Winnipeg has three.main streets, each one hundred and thirty-two feet wide. On these the limitation of twelve stories would make the ordinary commercial building about one hundred and sixty-five feet high, while for department stores, requiring high ceilings, one hundred and ninety-eight feet is allowed for twelve stories, which is only one and one-half times the width of the street. Practically all other streets are sixty-six feet wide, so that the rule would give a limit of height of one hundred and fifteen feet six inches, or about eight stories.