Base height

Base height is the contextual regime's vertical band for the street wall: a minimum height it must reach and a maximum it may not exceed before the building steps back from the street. The band's values vary by district and often by street width, but the effect is uniform — buildings on the same frontage rise to comparable heights before setting back, producing the level cornice lines that define contextual streetscapes.

The minimum matters as much as the maximum: new construction cannot hide behind a low podium where the rules demand the wall first meet its neighbors. For massing analysis, the base-height band plus the required setback and the maximum building height define most of a contextual lot's envelope arithmetic.