Dixmont, ME Building Setbacks & Zoning: Structure Height Limits (2026)

Two Dixmont instruments touch structure height, and they work differently. Section 10(C) of the Town of Dixmont Building Code Ordinance (March 21, 2009, officially amended March 17, 2018) is a trigger, not a cap: the Code Enforcement Officer may require the installation of an approved fire suppression system in a structure, any part of which is over thirty-five feet in height. The ordinance prints no maximum height for buildings elsewhere in town, so a taller structure is not barred outright but can be made to carry a suppression system as a condition of the permit under Section 6 and Section 8.

The hard cap is in the Shoreland Zoning Ordinance, adopted March 19, 2016 and approved by the Department of Environmental Protection. Section 15(B)(2) says principal or accessory structures, and expansions of existing structures, shall not exceed thirty-five (35) feet in height. The cap does not apply to structures such as transmission towers, windmills, antennas and similar structures having no floor area. Section 3 limits the reach of that ordinance to land within 250 feet of the normal high-water line of great ponds, within 250 feet of the upland edge of a freshwater wetland, and within 75 feet of the normal high-water line of a stream.

Section 17 of the Shoreland ordinance defines the height of a structure as the vertical distance between the mean original (prior to construction) grade at the downhill side of the structure and the highest point of the structure, excluding chimneys, steeples, antennas and similar appurtenances that have no floor area. Because the measurement starts at the original grade on the downhill side, fill or grading does not lower a structure's measured height. Smaller height limits apply to some reconstruction and expansion projects near the water, and the Code Enforcement Officer issues the shoreland permits.