Middletown, OH Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Downtown Design Guide (2026)

04(b)(1) requires new construction and building renovations in the UC District to follow the Downtown Middletown Design Guidelines for New Construction and Building Renovation, and states that where the guidelines conflict with the code, the guidelines control. 04(a) applies these nonresidential design standards to all new principal buildings in the UC and BC Districts and their subdistricts, to new nonresidential principal and accessory buildings in residential districts, to new principal buildings in the O-1, O-2, B-1, B-2, B-3 and PI Districts, and to exterior alterations or expansions of existing buildings otherwise covered.

04(b)(2), buildings must generally sit parallel to the street they front, include a main entrance on the primary frontage, and may orient a corner entrance toward an intersecting street; service entries are barred from any street-facing façade. Every main entrance must include at least two of ten listed design features, such as canopies or porticos, roof overhangs, entry recesses, arcades, raised parapets, gabled roofs or arches, a plaza at least 20 feet deep, or adjacent display windows. , and later subsections bar thin, unadorned parapet walls with less than a two-foot depth and require mechanical and utility equipment, including transformers and HVAC units, to be painted to match the building or screened from view and kept out of front yards.

Because Part Twelve carries the Development Code's own enforcement chapter, a project that ignores the guidelines or these standards is subject to the same civil and criminal remedies as any other Development Code violation.