Danbury is not known for its sky piercing structures but we have a handful of tall buildings, these are the 5 tallest in the Hat City.

5 Tallest Buildings in Danbury

I gathered all my statistics from Emporis, this seems to be the only organization that cares how tall Danbury building are. Emporis is a database for buildings, who knew right?

It's interesting though, the Tower Building is the tallest in Danbury at 146+ feet. Then you'll notice that the Crowne Plaza and Kimberly Place are identical in height at 121.97 feet. The same applies to Putnam Towers and Danbury Commons at 97.58 feet a piece.

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My guess is that Putnam Towers and Danbury Commons were constructed in a time period where City code only allowed residential buildings to be 98 feet tall or less. Kimberly Place may have been built when the code was 122 feet or less and special arrangements were likely made to build the Hospital in the first place.

I have some experience with reading municipal codes, believe it or not. From that experience, I've learned not to read it, if you don't have to. So, my guesses will remain guesses. Here's an example from the City of Danbury.

COD Zoning Regulations - Section 4 - Residential Districts - (Click that and you get the following options): 

A. Single Family Residential Districts: RA-8, RA-20, RA-40, RA-80
B. Multi-Family Residential Districts: RMF-10, RMF-6, RMF-4
C. Three Family Residential District: R-3
D. High-Rise Residential District: RH-3
E. Waterfront Residential-Recreational District: RR-10
F. Residential-Office District: R-O
G. Additional Residential Regulations
H. Planned Neighborhood Development: PND

I'll choose option D. High-Rise Residential District: RH-3 (Sounds good but we easily could have made our first mistake).

You scroll to 4.D.3 - General Use Regulations 

If you look at the entire list, not the special exceptions, and I am reading this right, you can only have a high-rise residential building that is a maximum of 7 stories. That's also one specific district and I don't which one. It's likely Main Street but who the hell knows? Do you?

P.S. You might be saying Lou, how can the max be 7 stories but there you just told us there are at least 5 buildings that are taller? Those are called "preexisting non-conforming structures." Impressive, I know but I still don't know if I am reading it right.

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