I never knew this until a conversation with a customer today. He had a beautiful house on Green Mountain with a view spanning from the Tennessee river, All of Huntsville and clear to Mississippi it looked. We were talking about the view of downtown and how there aren’t many tall buildings in Huntsville. That’s when he told me that there was an old law / ordinance / thing that requires any building built to be smaller than the regions building. So essentially cant be more than 9 or 10 stories. For a city that’s growing faster than most have seen in a long time, it seems odd to restrict growth vertically in a crowded downtown area.

It’s been around since I was younger.

Did the customer happen to have the initials MB?

If so that’s a family member of mine. His 3rd floor has a retractable wall that you can see everything you described.

He was selling it so not sure if he’s still up there.

I heard that a long time ago, some guy I worked with in 2016 tried telling me they were rescinding it, but never heard any news articles mention it.

Not those initials. I haven’t been on Green Mountain much, if any, in about 5 years, that place is growing like everywhere else. It reminded me of The Ledges in a few spots with the style and size of a few houses.

Green Mountain has blown up with houses in the last 5-7 years. It's kinda sad to see house's pop up damn near everywhere up here now.

I imagine it is because they don't want to have to invest in very expensive new fire fighting equipment. They have to have something that will reach however high the tallest building is. That is why a number of cities, I know Selma and I believe Auburn, limit the heights of buildings.

If I remember reading it correctly, this ordinance has been in place for decades and it had something to do with the restricting views. There was talk a few years back about changing it to allow for taller buildings, I don't know that anything was changed though.

If the right client comes along with the right amount of $$$, that may change. But on the other hand, let's let millions go away with the lottery. I guess I'll bet on the stupid dumb-assery prevailing, and not the smarts.

True statement. That is why Huntsville Hospitals new Spine and Neuro building is only 9 stories. The max allowed under city ordinances for the downtown district. We could not get a waiver to go taller. The reason given was they didn't want the view spoiled by taller buildings.

Its the cell tower law. (View Shed) A lot of places have these ordinances because they do not want their skyline uglied up by a bunch of stuff. A standard environmental and cultural survey for something like a cell tower is a 1 mile radius which includes a view shed analysis.

Have no idea if it’s true or makes any sense but I’ve heard it was because of all the caverns, underground lakes etc. in the north central AL area. Not sure how the height of a building coincides with that but I’ve heard a few people say it. I do know for a fact that there are some underground tunnels and small caverns under the courthouse and a very old bank in downtown Huntsville.