miamicanes
November 18th, 2004, 03:01 PM
For anyone who's intimately familiar with Miami zoning, here are a few questions that I suspect the folks at the zoning department really wouldn't like to be put in a position of having to answer...
The zoning code says that a required yard must be free of any permanent structures from 42" above sidewalk height and above. Does that mean that you can legally build anything you want, right up to the side and rear property lines and base building line, as deep as you can afford or achieve, as long as no part of it lies more than 42" above sidewalk height within what would otherwise be a required yard or setback? Even in, say, a residential neighborhood?
Just to give an acid-case hypothetical, could someone legally dig a 20 foot deep hole right up to the property line in a single-family neighborhood and build a rectangular concrete donut that's 10 feet wide, 20 feet deep, and 42" high (relative to sidewalk level)? Or is there some hidden building code or law incorporated by reference that actually gives the city the power to say "no" to something like that?
Related to that, how do subterran structures factor into footprint calculations? Would it make a difference if the structure were entirely below ground and had a foot of dirt (landscaped) backfilled over it?
Or... the matter of fences and perimeter walls, which are allowed to hug the property line as long as they don't exceed 8' high or encroach into a visibility triangle. When does a structure that's substantially open to the free flow of light and air stop being a fence and become a structure subject to setbacks (like, say, a screened pool enclosure)? For instance, is a chainlink fence dog kennel a fence or a structure (assuming the top is still less than 8' above sidewalk height)? How about a steel fence with similar steel bars? OK, then how small can you make the mesh before it becomes a "pool enclosure" (sans pool), which IS considered by the zoning department to be a structure and not a fence? Is it the height (above 8') that matters, the presence of anything resembling a top, or some other magic factor?
The zoning code says that a required yard must be free of any permanent structures from 42" above sidewalk height and above. Does that mean that you can legally build anything you want, right up to the side and rear property lines and base building line, as deep as you can afford or achieve, as long as no part of it lies more than 42" above sidewalk height within what would otherwise be a required yard or setback? Even in, say, a residential neighborhood?
Just to give an acid-case hypothetical, could someone legally dig a 20 foot deep hole right up to the property line in a single-family neighborhood and build a rectangular concrete donut that's 10 feet wide, 20 feet deep, and 42" high (relative to sidewalk level)? Or is there some hidden building code or law incorporated by reference that actually gives the city the power to say "no" to something like that?
Related to that, how do subterran structures factor into footprint calculations? Would it make a difference if the structure were entirely below ground and had a foot of dirt (landscaped) backfilled over it?
Or... the matter of fences and perimeter walls, which are allowed to hug the property line as long as they don't exceed 8' high or encroach into a visibility triangle. When does a structure that's substantially open to the free flow of light and air stop being a fence and become a structure subject to setbacks (like, say, a screened pool enclosure)? For instance, is a chainlink fence dog kennel a fence or a structure (assuming the top is still less than 8' above sidewalk height)? How about a steel fence with similar steel bars? OK, then how small can you make the mesh before it becomes a "pool enclosure" (sans pool), which IS considered by the zoning department to be a structure and not a fence? Is it the height (above 8') that matters, the presence of anything resembling a top, or some other magic factor?