What are Building Setbacks and Easements ?
We all know of homes that feel to close to one another. I have heard individuals joke about how they could possibly touch each home that sit next to each other at the same time. It is interesting how they speak about new homes being to close. But the closest homes I have encountered are the ones built back in the early 1900s in Denver. I have literally had to walk slightly sideways to move between them. Neighbors joked how the cats of the area were able to jump from roof to roof because the older homes were so close to each other in Denver. I have been around properties where buildings were constructed right on the property line, making the side of the building the property line and the roof extended over into the neighbors land. I have met neighbors who disagreed about where their common boundary was and what to do about things built intruding onto the other property. There were instances when I witnessed how not enough room was allowed between buildings to allow a utility to be repaired underground and had to be hand dug out, and filled back in.
The use of setbacks and easements has allowed present day construction to not create these problems.
Most new parcels of land have established setbacks and easements that limit the location where the home and accessory buildings can be built. Easements are areas of land whereby access is given to agencies or companies to maintain what the easement is created for. Easements can be established for drainage or any utility above and below the ground. They are commonly made wide enough to allow repair vehicles access to the entire length of the utility or drainage swale. Easements can also include prohibitions against planting trees and bushes that would need to be destroyed if a repair was to be made.
Setbacks are a set distance from property lines that buildings can not encroach upon. Sometimes roof overhangs can be limited too by easements and setbacks. Overhangs may be allowed in those areas by a short distance. However, even rare, zero lot line construction allows buildings to be built to the property line. Duplex and other townhomes may actually use a zero lot line as a centerline through the common wall between units. When this happens and in homes allowed under 5 feet from a property line, the “Building Code” will limit what materials can be used within a determined distance from that line. This is for the suppression of fire spread from one unit to another property.
The combination of setbacks and easements limit the overall footprint of the home. You can not build onto either setbacks or easements. Materials and number of openings such as doors and windows change depending upon how close the home is built to a property line. You should acquaint yourself with each of these before you commission a design.
Gary Miller
Principal and Architectural Designer,
Timbertree and Stonecastle Designs, LLC