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

The Town of Skowhegan prints its structure height cap in Section 15(B)(2) of the Shoreland Zoning Ordinance, amended through June 5, 2021. The cap is thirty-five feet and covers principal structures, accessory structures and expansions of existing structures. It does not follow a house or garage across the whole town. Section 3 limits the ordinance to land within two hundred and fifty feet, horizontal distance, of the normal high water line of any great pond or river, within two hundred and fifty feet of the upland edge of a freshwater wetland, and within seventy-five feet of the normal high water line of a stream.

The sentence names five districts: Resource Protection, Limited Residential, Limited Commercial, Wetlands Protection and Stream Protection. General Development, the sixth district listed in Section 9, is not named in Section 15(B)(2), so the 35 foot figure is not printed for that district.

Section 17 defines height of a structure as the vertical distance between the mean original 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. The starting point is the mean original grade on the downhill side, so a sloped lot is measured from its lower side. The cap itself does not apply to structures such as transmission towers, windmills, antennas and similar structures having no floor area.

Other height figures sit in the same ordinance. A storage accessory structure that the Code Enforcement Officer permits on a non-conforming lot of record cannot exceed eighty square feet in area nor eight feet in height (Section 15(B)(1)(b)). Structures built on, over or abutting a pier, wharf or dock cannot exceed twenty feet in height above that pier, wharf or dock, except in the General Development District (Section 15(C)(7)). Section 15(B)(3) separately requires the lowest floor elevation or openings of all buildings and structures, including basements, to sit at least one foot above the elevation of the one hundred year flood, the flood of record, or in the absence of these, the flood defined by recent flood plain soils.

Relief comes by variance. Section 16(H)(2)(a) lists structure height among the dimensional requirements the Board of Appeals can vary, but only on a finding of undue hardship under Section 16(H)(2)(c).