How tall is tall with infill construction in existing neighborhoods?

The Pleasant Hill City Council on Tuesday approved a proposal from Danville-based developer Blake/Griggs Properties to build 189 apartments at 85 Cleaveland Road in the city’s downtown area. (Rendering by KTGY Architecture + Planning)

There is a headline in a San Jose Mercury News article, "189-unit apartment complex will be East Bay city’s second-tallest building," that caught my attention.  A 4.5 story building is the second tallest building in the East Bay region of Northern California.  That's not tall at all.

Illustration from The House Book by Keith DuQuette, showing the different heights and densities of different types of housing, based on proximity to the core of a metropolitan region.

(This concept is also captured within the Transect of New Urbanism.)

This came up in my DC neighborhood of Takoma, with proposals for redevelopment on part of the Takoma Metrorail site.  

Presently, buildings around the site can be as tall as four stories, but some opponents to new development argued that the site should be developed according to the height of 1.5 story bungalows across the street.  

-- "Takoma's Brookland moment: some opposition to apartment development on the WMATA station site," 2013
-- "The Takoma Metro Development Proposal and its illustration of gaps in planning and participation processes," 2014
-- "Design of the apartment building at the Takoma Metro: offering better design cues," 2014
-- ""Right size" development protest sign, Takoma Metro," 2014
-- "DC Comprehensive Land Use Plan Revision," 2020

I argue that they could be a little taller even, based on proximity to the Metrorail and because this is the center of the neighborhood, where buildings are taller at the core, and shorter outside of it.

This building is on the second block over from the interesection with Kennedy Street NW, 5620 Colorado Avenue NW.

This was also typical in the early days of "transit oriented development" associated with passenger railroad and streetcar services.  

A good example in DC is near the intersection of 14th Street, Kennedy Street, and Colorado Avenue NW, which used to be the terminus of one of the streetcar lines.  

There are "taller" apartment buildings within one block of the intersection, about five stories, shorter apartment buildings the next block, and one and two story houses beyond.

-- Trans-Formation: Recreating Transit-Oriented Neighborhood Centers in Washington, DC: A Design Handbook for Neighborhood Residents, DC Office of Planning, 2002 (out of print)

A four square in Brookland.

Or a DC Court ruling held that the DC Comprehensive Plan language was misleading because "6 story buildings" are really tall in the context of neighborhoods where the tallest residence is about two stories ("Court remands Brookland project to zoning panel in ruling that could set precedent for future development bids," 204, "D.C. court rejects Brookland project for a third and possibly final time," 2016, Washington Business Journal, "A court ruling on a Brookland development could imperil future housing near Metro stations," Greater Greater Washington).

In Salt Lake, where I am living now, people in my neighborhood are roiled about the coming redevelopment of an intersection site on a major street, where the new buildings--the area is zoned commercial--will be 3-5 stories tall, when the neighborhood housing stock is a mix of one and two story single family houses with some duplexes mixed in, and a smattering of apartments that top out at three stories.

The reality is that it won't be that tall in its context, at a major intersection, and it will extend the range of housing types otherwise offered in the neighborhood.

The fact is, the US population is greater today than it was when most cities were developed, before the 1940s.  The cost of land is such that only multiunit housing will be created, except in very particular and unusual situations.

And is it reasonable to define "too tall" in terms of the prevailing definition 90 years ago, and for all locations regardless of land use context.

Like the New Urban Transect, the Smart Transportation Guidebook: Planning and Designing Highways and Streets that Support Sustainable and Livable Communities, produced by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, serving Greater Philadelphia, laid out an approach for road planning in terms of land use context, defining heights in terms of regional and neighborhood centers.

The Nashville Community Character Manual uses a similar approach (below).

These approaches need to be adopted and communicated more widely, so that people use 21st century appropriate land use development and transportation planning paradigms when considering new development within their communities.