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So I was taking a walk in Palo Alto today -- I think along Webster Street -- and noticed one of those (common in Palo Alto) new-ish homes with fancy light wells for the habitable space in the basement. (It's popular because basements don't count as floor area for zoning code!)
But this one was unusual. Unlike most of the fancy new houses I walk past in Palo Alto, this one was single story. Single story plus a fancy habitable basement, that is.
At first glance that seemed odd.
At first glance that seemed odd.
But then I started to think about Palo Alto's zoning code for the R-1 zone. (See http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/California/paloalto_ca/paloaltomunicipalcode?f=templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:paloalto_ca section 18.12.)
And I remembered that single-story houses are allowed to cover more of the lot than multi-story houses, to allow them to have the same limit on floor area.
And I remembered that single-story houses are allowed to cover more of the lot than multi-story houses, to allow them to have the same limit on floor area.
But, if you (unlike the law) think of the habitable basement as floor area, this means that a single story house with a basement is allowed to have *more* floor area than a multi-story house on the same lot, since the above-ground limit is the same but the basement can be bigger.
So this means that someone constructing a single-family house in Palo Alto who wants to maximize floor area, doesn't care about a lot being in the basement, and doesn't care about reducing the size of the garden/lawn/etc., actually maximizes floor area by building single-story.
Of course, this seems rare, I suspect because single story houses don't *look* fancy. Maybe also because people like multi-story layouts.. But I like to think it's the former.
Anyway, that's today's tale of how the math in the zoning code changes the buildings around us.
Anyway, that's today's tale of how the math in the zoning code changes the buildings around us.
