Waco, TX Building Setbacks & Zoning: Structure Height Limits (2026)

Waco doesn't set a single citywide height cap; instead Section 28-903 ties the maximum height of any structure to the district table for the zone where it sits, and most residential and commercial districts elsewhere in Chapter 28 fix specific numbers (for example, the C-3 general commercial and C-5 service commercial districts cap structures at four stories or 60 feet under Section 28-650 and Section 28-700). Section 28-903 then layers three exceptions on that base cap. Public buildings, churches, temples, hospitals, institutions, and schools can rise to 70 feet if every required yard is widened by at least one additional foot for every two feet the building exceeds its district's normal height limit, a trade-off that pushes a taller building further from its property lines.

Chimneys, church steeples, cooling towers, elevator bulkheads, fire towers, monuments, stacks, stage towers, tanks, water towers, ornamental towers, spires, utility lines and poles, grain elevators, and other necessary mechanical appurtenances are exempted from height regulations altogether, so they can exceed the district maximum without triggering the yard trade-off. Office buildings and hotels in the C-1, C-2, C-3, and C-5 commercial districts get a separate allowance, up to five stories or 75 feet, again conditioned on widening required yards by one foot for every two feet of excess height.

Storage buildings get a narrower exemption under subsection (3): they are excused only from the district's story-count limit, not from the numeric foot limit. These exceptions interact with the yard requirements of Section 28-904, so a taller building necessarily consumes more of its lot in setbacks.