Bessemer, AL Building Setbacks & Zoning: Structure Height Limits (2026)

1 of Appendix B (Zoning), lists a Maximum Height column for every zoning district. R-1 Single-family, the city's base residential district, is capped at 35 feet; R-4 and R-5 multi-family districts rise to 45 feet, matching most commercial districts such as C-3 through C-7. The C-2 Central Business district carries no height limit at all, reflecting its role as Bessemer's historic downtown core, though its ground-coverage percentage still steps down for taller buildings, from 100 percent up to six stories to 85 percent above 17 stories.

Industrial districts are governed separately by footnote 2 to Table 2: the maximum height of structures in every industrial zoning district is 105 feet, but where an industrially zoned property abuts a residential district that limit drops to 45 feet. A developer can buy back height only by pushing the building farther from the residential line, gaining ten feet of additional height for every 35 feet of extra setback from the abutting residential property line, with 105 feet as an absolute ceiling regardless of setback.

9 separately allows narrow, non-habitable structures such as chimneys, cooling towers, elevator bulkheads, water towers and steeples to rise above the district limit without triggering these rules, and lets churches, schools and other public buildings exceed the district height cap if they add one foot of front, side and rear yard depth for every two feet of additional height.