GRANT GARSTKA

The City and County of Denver uses View Planes as a regulatory tool to limit building heights to protect key vantage points across the city.

​

This application was developed using 3D data in Arc Scene to evaluate the Old City Hall view plane in Denver. The view plane was being re-evaluated by city staff because of the recent passing of the Stadium District Master Plan, which partly lies within the view plane but outlines a plan for higher density development.

​

The data in this application shows the heights of existing buildings in the area, the ground elevation, and the view plane ceiling. The ceiling is the allowed building height as defined by the view plane over the course of the view plane extent. In general, the allowed height increases from the point of origin. Yet, the ground elevation must be taken into consideration.

​

This application helps to clearly illustrate the state-owned buildings on Auraria Campus – that are exempt from the city view place regulations – penetrate the view plane. Arguably, this renders the rest of the view plane regulations obsolete. The variance allotted to Mile High Stadium can also be seem in this data.

​

Providing 3D data in this manner provided a very fruitful means of exploring and explaining view plane data to key stakeholders.

​

Use the navigation tools in the application below to spin the data around, “walk” within the view plane and look up to get a sense of the maximum allowed height, or visit the origin point of the view plane to see how buildings interpose the overall view plane. The North West corner of the view plane extent demonstrates how the increase in elevation along Federal Blvd means the allowed building heights decrease compared to other parts of the view plane.