Skyscrapers in Washington DC

I was watching TV today and I noticed that other than the Washington Monument, there aren’t any skyscrapers in Washington DC like there are in other major US cities. Does anyone know the reason behind this or did I just miss the tall buildings?

You don’t have a location listed, so I’m not sure if you’re American or whatnot. Washington, DC, has a strict height limit on buildings. Nobody wants a buncha skyscrapers overshadowing all the government buildings, which are not built to reach out towards the stars in most nations. It would ruin the tastefullness of the whole thing.

Thanks for the answer. So I guess DC’s one of the few cities that has and will stay close to what the original planners had in mind.

As I recall, there was a legal battle when Arlington built it’s first tall building.

Stand on the bridge joining Rosslyn (in Arlington VA) with Georgetown (in Washington DC).
Face Georgetown… note the quaint nature of the city.
Face Rosslyn…note the buildings reach dozens of stories into the sky.

scratch head.

There used to be a restriction limiting towers to below the height of the Peace Tower, but it has since been abandoned, to my dismay.

Ottawa is similar, though they do have some taller buildings. Just NYC’s moderately tall buildings could make the city look like a small village. Its not that there’s no demand for the larger buildings, they did it on purpose from what I’ve heard.

Beautiful city, by the way.

I’ve heard that Austin, TX has had some similar restrictions about keeping an open line of sight to the Capitol building. As with most things, people generally blame Lady Bird Johnson.

True, but those buildings in Rosslyn wouldn’t be considered skyscrapers in any other big city.

Nothing in D.C. is allowed to be built taller than the top of the U.S. Capitol building. The Capitol isn’t very tall, but it’s on a hill, so buildings in D.C. max out at about 15 stories at the very highest – and there are really only a very few over 10. The exceptions are the Washington Monument and The Cairo, an apartment building built about a century ago that was the reason the rule was codified in the first place.

I like the look of the city as it exists, but we do have to recognize that there are tremendous costs to it. The inability to build up instead of out had led to the worst sprawl on the East Coast, which is why we have one of the worst commutes even though we’re a much smaller city and metro area than New York, Chicago, or Philly. It also means the price of housing is astronomical, which has a deleterious effect on the working poor, especially as more and more of the city is gentrifying.

–Cliffy

Portland, Maine has a similiar ordinance … not like it’s a hot-bead for skyscrapers in the first place (our tallest building I think is about 15 stories).

As far as I recall, no builiding can be taller than the lighthouse on Munjoy Hill – which is weird because the lighthouse itself is only about 50 feet tall … but it is at the highest point in the city.

I’ll say this for the height restrictions: The view of the city from one of those high rises just across the river is amazing. You can look down and literally see a dozen different momuments and famous buildings from one spot. It probably wouldn’t be so nice with a bunch of skyscrapers in the way.

I heard once that the city of Anaheim had an ordinance that no building could be built so high that it could be seen from inside Disneyland. Is this true?

San Jose, CA has the world worst skyline because the height limit (due to the airport) is higher than quaint and lower than interesting.

From The American Surveyor: *"The Heights of Buildings Act of 1899 limited buildings in the District to 288 feet, the height of the Capitol building, in response to the newly erected 14-story Cairo apartment tower, then considered a monstrosity (now revered as outstandingly beautiful) towering over its Dupont Circle neighborhood. The replacement 1910 Act, now part of the current local D.C. Code, restricts building height to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet.

The result has been a city with streets full of natural sunlight warming pedestrians on wintry days (unlike in the canyons between Manhattan’s skyscrapers) but also a landlord’s heaven, with the limited commodity of square feet renting for premium prices. Is it time to look upwards to the next developable frontier? As recently as 1991 Congress disapproved a new Schedule of Heights Amendment Act proposed by the Mayor and Council of the District of Columbia, and approved only moderate revisions in 1999."*

Another good read is D.C.'s height limits in the Washington Business Journal.

If memory serves, no statue is to be larger than the Statue of Freedom either atop the Capitol Dome. It’s 19’ 6" while the next tallest, than of Jefferson in his memorial stands at 19 even.

We used to have stricter rules concerning the maintaining of Capitol views but these have been reduced to a few viewing corridors. As a result, a number of high rises have sprung up downtown in the past few years. Some of them have been condo projects which, now that the economy is in the drink, are struggling.

I think this effect may be more limited, or at least more complicated, than you describe. Relatively little DC housing is actually built up to the height limit; i.e., there’s room for a lot more 12-story buildings than actually exist. There’s also room for more high-density housing in the close-in suburbs if the demand were there. Besides which, the availability of lots of high-density skyscraper living hasn’t kept Manhattan from becoming astronomical.

I will certainly concede that the issue is complex. But especially given the construction boom downtown over the last few years, there would be a lot more high residential space in certain areas than there is now. If that existed, then the yuppie would move there instead of gentrifying the working poor out of their apartments.

–Cliffy

Very true.

Ok, but I have to do it electronically.

I miss living in Georgetown. I miss living on an expense account in Georgetown as a single, fancy free IT worker in the Pre-dot.com crash era. :frowning:

I just did a big double-take there because the view of what I presume is Georgetown University appeared bizarrely similar to the the view of Parliament Hill in Ottawa from the Portage Bridge.