A couple seeking to build a barn bigger than their north Lincoln home want the city to rewrite its zoning rules to authorize their project's construction.Â
Dr. Jonathan Henning and Paige Duncan want the Lincoln City Council to remove the city code restricting the height of accessory buildings.Â
Current rules allow an unheated shed built outside the setback from a home to be as tall as zoning rules allow for that property, but an air-conditioned shed can only be as tall as the home.
"(This amendment) will allow the project to go forward for their barn to be taller than their 25-foot, two-story, flat-roof house," the couple's attorney, Kent Seacrest, told the council. Â
The property is located in a tree-covered area of north Lincoln near Interstate 80.
The City Council implemented the height rule in 2017 when it expanded zoning rules to accessory dwellings and accessory buildings with air-conditioning and heating.
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Planners at the time wanted to restrict larger outbuildings near a home from visually looming over the main building, according to a summary of the change.Â
In the proposed amendment, the accessory building could be as tall as the maximum building height allowed under zoning rules on that property as long as it had heating and air conditioning.Â
Those buildings, though, would need to be outside the setback from the home, and city planning staff believe making this change would not create significant negative effects on neighboring properties, the summary said.Â
Otherwise, an accessory building without heating or air conditioning and within the setback from the main building could only be up to 15 feet tall.
No one opposed the rule change during Monday's council hearing, and Seacrest said no one had opposed it publicly before it was approved during a Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Commission meeting.Â
City Council members will vote on the proposal April 27.