Protected view
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A protected view is the legal requirement within urban planning to preserve the view of a specific place or historic building from another location. The effect of a protected view is to limit the height of new buildings within or adjacent to the sightline between the two places so as to preserve the ability to see the landmark as a focus of the view. The protection may also cover the area behind the place or building concerned.
Examples are the various views of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London:
- from King Henry VIII's Mound in Richmond Park
- a distance of over 10 miles (16 km) and created in 1710, this view frames the cathedral through a special gap in holly hedging, down a specially maintained clear avenue in Sidmouth Wood and then all the way across London. When Liverpool Street Station was developed in the 1990s the height of the buildings was reduced as it was decided a tall structure would have formed an unacceptable backdrop to the view of St Paul's.
- from Parliament Hill by Hampstead Heath
- from the central London bridges of Waterloo and Hungerford
Protected views are not unique to the UK, also existing in places such as San Francisco, California which has some of the strictest limits in the world, Portland, Oregon where the size of downtown blocks is kept low to maintain the views of Mount Hood from the West Hills and the city of Vancouver which has protected "view cones".
