The planner responsible for this area conducted a walk-around with about two dozen area residents yesterday afternoon. To an earlier discussion on this thread, he noted that there is considerable ambiguity with regard to maximum height allowances on Yorkville and Cumberland between Avenue and Bay.
I expect that will become an issue in the near future when we see First Capital's plans for the Yorkville-fronting retail space occupied by Over the Rainbow, Summer's Ice Cream, and others. That's a very significant stretch of Yorkville and the fact that it is currently, for lack of a more technically appropriate term, "1.5 stories tall" is a significant contributing factor to the "village feel" that makes Yorkville unique.
The planner noted conflicting and ambiguous planning documents that a developer could trifle with, and that the most clear existing declaration of a height maximum was "4 storeys"; he pointed out the obvious, which is that there is no actual height designation included in that stipulation. (4 storeys could be a supertall if each storey was 400 feet in height; oversimplification, yes, but illustrative of the problematic ambiguity.)
