Lancaster County, NE Building Setbacks & Zoning: Structure Height Limits (2026)

011 of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Zoning Resolution sets the height ceiling for the county's "R" Residential District at two and one-half stories and thirty-five feet, the low-rise limit that governs the small-town residential areas the district is designed to cover. The section carves out two escape valves, Articles 15 and 17, where taller structures are allowed under separate conditions. 001 lets public, semi-public or public-service buildings, hospitals, institutions and schools rise to sixty feet, and places of religious assembly to seventy-five feet, but only if the building is set back from every yard line by one additional foot for each two feet it climbs above the district's normal height limit, a formula that pushes taller construction toward the interior of larger lots.

003 exempts an entirely different category from the height count altogether: barns, chimneys, cooling towers, elevator bulkheads, fire towers, grain elevators, silos, spires, stacks, tanks, water towers and wind energy conversion systems (WECS) over the district height are not measured against the 35-foot cap at all, while noncommercial amateur-radio antenna towers and satellite dishes are separately capped at sixty-five feet. Small Energy Conversion Systems and WECS mounted on top of a building are likewise exempt. Outside those named exceptions, a standard single-family or two-family home, or a multiple dwelling, in the R District cannot exceed the 2-1/2 story, 35-foot cap, and the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Department reviews building permits against that limit before construction begins.