What does a "25-foot height limit" actually guarantee a buyer in Highland Park? Less than the listing sheet implies. The number printed in the zoning ordinance and the number a builder can actually construct on a specific lot are two different things, and the gap between them is decided one grade survey at a time by a five-member board that meets in the Town Council chamber a few blocks from Highland Park Village.
The same pattern holds for the town's other defining trait: its inventory of century-old estates. A house's age, architectural pedigree, or spot on a preservation society's most-significant list carries no legal weight against a demolition permit. Highland Park has never adopted a landmark ordinance, a certificate-of-appropriateness requirement, or a demolition-delay rule. Both facts point to the same underlying mechanic. In Highland Park, almost nothing about what you can build or what will survive is a fixed rule. It is a case-by-case finding, made address by address, and the buyer who understands that arrives at closing with a real read on what a lot supports instead of an assumption borrowed from the ordinance text.
The number on the ordinance is a starting point, not a ceiling
Highland Park's zoning code sets a top-plate cap of 26 feet in most single-family districts, dropping to 25 feet measured to the roof ridge within the rear 40 feet of a lot. That sounds like a fixed ceiling until you read how the ordinance defines the measuring point: height is calculated from the average established grade at the street line, or the natural front-yard ground level at the building setback, whichever is higher, up to the roof ridge. On a flat lot, that distinction never matters. On a sloped one, it resets the math entirely.
A case that came before the town's Board of Adjustment on Highland Drive shows exactly how. The lot in question drops roughly 7 feet in elevation from its northwest corner to its southeast corner. Because the ordinance recalculates height at each section of the structure rather than using one number for the whole property, the builder had to request an additional 4 feet 6 inches of allowable height just to build a home comparable to what a flat lot next door could support without a variance. The topography, not the design, created the shortfall.
Slope doesn't always cost a buyer height. A separate case a few blocks away, at 4712 St. Johns Avenue, involved a lot backing up to the town's boundary with Dallas and the Katy Trail, where the opposite side of the trail includes taller commercial buildings and apartments. The owner there won a variance to extend a flat roof 1.5 feet above the standard 26-foot maximum, plus additional relief allowing the structure to reach 2.5 feet above the rear-yard and top-plate limits that would otherwise apply. The justification wasn't the lot's own grade. It was what sat across the property line.
| Case | Address | What Drove the Variance | What It Changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Topography | 4501 Highland Drive | 7-foot grade drop, NW to SE corner | Additional 4 ft 6 in of height requested to offset the drop |
| Neighborhood context | 4712 St. Johns Avenue | Taller structures across the Katy Trail | Additional 1.5 to 2.5 ft above standard rear-yard limits |
Two lots, two entirely different justifications, both resulting in more buildable height than the plain ordinance number suggests. A buyer comparing two Highland Park properties that both list a "25-foot height limit" could be looking at meaningfully different buildable envelopes once grade and adjacent land use enter the picture. The only way to know which one you have is a topographic survey, done before the architectural plans are finalized, not after.
The neighbor letters are part of the record
Every variance request in Highland Park goes through a public hearing, and the town's own zoning guidance recommends contacting property owners within roughly 200 feet of the site during conceptual design, before the formal application is even filed. That isn't a courtesy step. It shapes what the Board sees.
A fence variance along Armstrong Parkway, requesting a 10-foot wall on the property's west side, arrived with six letters of support and none in opposition, and staff noted that five other properties nearby had already received similar relief. The Board evaluates every request against the same four questions: whether something specific to that property creates a special condition, whether strict enforcement would create unnecessary hardship, whether granting the variance harms the neighborhood's broader interest, and whether the request still fits the spirit of what the ordinance is trying to accomplish. No single objection blocks a project outright, but the presence or absence of neighbor input becomes part of the record the Board weighs, case by case, the same way grade and context do.
A landmark plaque doesn't stop a demolition permit
The same discretion-over-rule pattern shows up on the preservation side, and the stakes there are higher because there is no variance process to appeal to. There is simply no mechanism.
The clearest recent example is the Cox Mansion at 4101 Beverly Drive, built in 1912 and considered by many local preservationists the most significant house in the Park Cities. Its owner secured permits to demolish it, and in January 2025 his team went before the town's Zoning Commission asking to raise the height limit in the "A" zoning district, the first change to that district's height rule in 60 years, so a replacement home could include a glass-and-steel cupola reaching just under 65 feet. The commission approved it 3-2 after more than an hour of public comment. Preservation Park Cities board member Larry Good told the room what many residents were thinking, that the outcome meant the owner was "granted greater permissions to build back a replacement house" after tearing down the original.
A similar story played out on Fairfax Avenue in August 2023, when a 94-year-old home came down despite a neighborhood block party organized in protest. The builder on that project, Rozie Samei of Avida Custom Homes, said the house had been "chopped up" in a 1970s renovation that removed most of its original architectural detail, a point that complicated the preservation argument even as demolition proceeded. Preservation Park Cities began cataloging the town's 100 most historically significant homes in 2020 specifically because there is no ordinance to lean on. Within the first two years of that project, eight of the homes on the list were demolished. Zoomed out further, the group has recognized hundreds of homes and structures across Highland Park and University Park for their architectural or historic value over the years, and as of a count it reported in 2023, nearly 30 of those had already been razed. Board member Larry Good has put the underlying economics plainly: rising land values have "outstripped the value of the physical improvements that are on the land," which is another way of saying the house is frequently worth less than the dirt it sits on.
What this means before you write an offer
If you're evaluating an older Highland Park property, whether you plan to preserve it, renovate it, or price it as a rebuild-ready lot, the ordinance text and the house's history tell you less than a site-specific review will. A topographic survey shows you the real buildable envelope. A read of what sits across the property line shows you whether context might work in your favor the way it did on St. Johns Avenue. And a home's age or landmark status tells you almost nothing about whether it survives a change in ownership, because in Highland Park that decision sits with whoever signs the deed, not with the town.
This is where a local team that has coordinated rebuild-candidate purchases, vetted architects, and permit timelines earns its keep. Torelli Properties Group works with buyers across the Park Cities who are weighing exactly this kind of decision, and the first step is always the same: pull the lot's actual grade profile and zoning history before assuming anything the ordinance summary or the listing description implies.
A few questions worth settling early
Does every rebuild in Highland Park require a variance? No. Most projects that fit within the flat-lot assumptions built into the ordinance never go before the Board. Variances come up when a specific lot's grade, its neighboring context, or another site condition creates a situation the ordinance's flat numbers didn't anticipate.
Can a neighbor block a project just by objecting? Objection letters become part of the record the Board reviews, but no single neighbor holds veto power. The Board's decision rests on the four-part test, not on the volume of letters alone.
Is Highland Park likely to adopt a historic preservation ordinance? There is no indication of one on the horizon. Preservation Park Cities continues to track demolitions and advocate publicly, and that advocacy has occasionally shifted outcomes, but it remains advocacy, not law.
If you're weighing a purchase in Highland Park, whether it's a landmark-adjacent estate or a lot you suspect is really a teardown, Torelli Properties Group can walk you through the grade survey, the zoning history, and the variance record before you write the offer. Schedule your personalized consultation to get a clear read on what a specific address actually supports.
