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1 RPUD Ordinance November 14, 2000 Page 3 Building Height Perhaps the most glaring "omission" from the draft ordinance is a numerical limit on height for an attached-dwelling building such as the proposed senior housing facility. I place"omission"in quotes because height has been purposely omitted, with the intent that the lack of a defined standard requires Planning Commission and Council to determine an appropriate height for each proposed building through the PUD review process. In this process,the Council can approve any height that it feels is acceptable,but there are as of yet no set guidelines as to how the Council should determine acceptability. To date, we have set about creating a "Residential PUD" (RPUD) District, rather than a"Medium Density Residential District" ("MDRD"). The significant difference is that a PUD District designation infers that its written standards have already been relaxed from those of an equivalent non-PUD district(in this case the MDRD),and we inherently must avoid granting variances to these written RPUD standards. Therefore, if we wish to establish a written building height standard for the RPUD district,then it must be high enough to accommodate the expected and intended uses of the district without variance. As an alternative,we should set no height standard,but add language that establishes a guideline for determining what is an appropriate height for a given proposed building. The intent of the RPUD District is to provide "housing to meet lifecycle, and affordable and moderate cost housing needs". The reality may be that housing meeting these goals has to be of greater height than our historic norm, in order to be economically viable. The height standard for all of Orono's residential and commercial zoning districts is "2-1/2 stories or 30 feet"; the only district in which a greater height has been allowed is the Industrial District,which allows "3 stories or 40 feet" in height. A limit of 2-1/2 stories will probably eliminate most multi-unit dwelling types other than townhomes; likewise, a limit of 30 feet will probably not accommodate a 3-story building. A 3- story residentialbuilding with a flat roof will likely be at least 30-32' in defined height; if we want a pitched or hip roof to avoid an institutional or commercial look, then we must write the code to accommodate the greater height needed for such a roof. In the case of the example before us,the proposed senior housing building has a peak height,for the majority of its length, in the range of 42-48' as viewed from the south side, with portions of the facade appearing to be as much as 50'from finished grade to peak. The visual defined height(high- side grade to average gable height)averages 38'for most of the building's length;although a perhaps more strict adherence to the code definition(10'above lowest adjoining grade to average of highest gable)yields a defined height of[1046'-(991.5+10)] =44.5 feet,when considering the entire length of the building(but the building is stepped, so this method of defining height is somewhat perverse in this case).