Standards and Guidelines 2023-0607

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City of South Bend and St. Joseph County Historic Preservation Guidelines 33 Residential Standards: New Construction General understanding and approach A new residential building should be compatible with its context and reflect design features found in traditional District residential buildings . This includes building setback, scale and overall height, the number of stories, massing, foundation height, roof form, window and door sizes and placement, and porches . Building setbacks within a typical residential context reflect a transition from public to private space. This transition begins at the street, which is the most public space, then proceeds through semi-private front yard, and ends at the front door, which is the start of private space . This sequence should be maintained, because it enhances the pedestrian environment and contributes to the character of a residential District . The massing of a new building should fit within existing patterns but need not directly copy them. Variables in massing include varied heights, articulated masses, and entryways. Building massing should continue to provide a variety of pedestrian-friendly scales and visually appealing forms . Buildings should not be monolithic in scale or greatly contrast with the existing scale of the area . To achieve a sense of human scale with new development, it is important to focus design on aspects most directly experienced by pedestrians, such as the scale of buildings and architectural details at the street level . For example, providing a front porch in a residential setting creates a human scale . These features should be respected in new construction . In most Districts, a similarity of building and roof form also contributes to a sense of visual continuity . To maintain this characteristic, a new building should have basic building and roof forms like those seen in the District . Most residential buildings have similar amounts of glass, resulting in a relatively uniform solid-to-void (window to wall) ratio. The amount of façade devoted to the wall surface on a new building as compared to that developed as openings, should be like that of other buildings within the District . A new residential building should appear to be clearly connected to the street . Building materials for new structures and additions to existing buildings should contribute to the visual continuity of the district and appear like those seen traditionally . Read more about new construction and additions here . The Standards Setbacks And Site Parameters • Design characteristics of typical existing buildings help define rhythms that may contribute to the character of a neighborhood. Specific features that should be used in defining physical context include building age, style, design character, materials, the relationship of openings to solid wall areas, building use, roof lines, eaves, location of entries, and the placement of accessory structures . • Reflect the traditional setbacks seen within the block. Place the façade of the building at the property line. This should only vary in special circumstances, such as local precedence with treatments for large public buildings and places of worship . Massing And Scale • Maintain the average perceived size of buildings at the sidewalk . • Façade heights of new buildings should fall within the established range along the block and respect traditional proportions of height to width. Floor-to-floor heights should appear like those of traditional buildings in the area. • Traditional spacing patterns created by the repetition of uniform building widths along streets should be maintained . New façade widths should reflect the established range of the building widths seen along the block. Reference historic examples for double and triple lot buildings . • Where a building must exceed this width, use a change in design features to suggest the traditional building widths . Changes in façade material, window design, façade height or decorative details are techniques that may be considered . These variations should be expressed through the structure, so the composition is a collection of smaller buildings . New Construction