Between Flood Regulations And Height Limits, Flat Roofs Could Be Making A Comeback

Between local height restrictions on homes and new flood insurance regulations, an increasing number of new home owners may be turning away from traditional pitched shingle-style homes and opting instead for more modern, flat-roofed structures.

The flat roof can allow a homeowner to get as much living space out of a new house as possible while still complying with Federal Emergency Management Agency regulations pertaining to the height of a house in a flood zone, which in many cases elevate the grade at which the house sits, leaving less house, vertically, to work with within local height restrictions.

On the other hand, modern, often flat designs can cause strife with neighbors and preservationists determined to keep the historic views alive in the Hamptons—as has been the case with a proposal to build a glass-encased modern home in a historic district on Southampton’s Meadow Lane and, more recently, a more modern house on Gin Lane.

“A lot of times, modern architecture is associated with flat-roofed structures, especially in residential work going back to the Case Study Houses in California,” local architect Viola Rouhani of the Bridgehampton-based firm Stelle Lomont Rouhani said, referring to an experimental architectural project commissioned around the middle of the 20th century.

“The flat roof generally keeps the structures lower and less intrusive,” she said. “While some historic districts feel that these are not in keeping with the existing structures, in many cases it is understood that this is a necessity in terms of conforming to height requirements.”

On the East End, many architects are facing problems with designs because most municipalities, like Southampton Village, have their own maximum height that a house can be. That, coupled with the FEMA base line, which determines the lowest elevation at which a house can start, sets the requirements for a house in an area.

An elevated FEMA line can make a house much more visible from the street, and harder to camouflage into the background. Modern houses on full display can cause tensions, especially in neighborhoods where traditional designs prevail.

The FEMA line can also cause problems when designing the house. If a house must start 14 feet higher than ground level, but still not surpass local height restrictions, the amount of living space will be limited. With a flat-roof house, architects are often able to design another floor for the house, adding more living space.

A local real estate attorney, John Bennett, pointed out a downside in terms of design. “What ends up happening is really that architects are having more and more creativity stolen from them because they have to design to a set of regulations as opposed to an aesthetic,” he said. “It really is killing architectural creativity.”

Mr. Bennett said a flat-roofed building often can fit quite well into a historic district, and they have been doing so successfully for decades. He said such homes represent a larger trend moving away from shingle-style homes.

“These are architectural trends,” he said. “They are not unknown in Southampton Village, people are just taking a very parochial view of these things. In addition to having a wonderful historic center, the village has always been an incubator for fresh, creative, forward-thinking homes.”

Ms. Rouhani said modern homes can be just as beautiful, if not more so, than homes in the shingle style. She also said that while the roofs often appear to be flat, they always have a slight pitch to allow for runoff and drainage.

If it doesn’t already completely reach the maximum allowable height, a flat roof can also add the opportunity for a rooftop deck or lounge area.

“The regulations have been in place for a long time,” Ms. Rouhani said. “But more and more people are becoming interested in modern architecture, so a flat roof is very much a part of that aesthetic, and allows for more things to happen than with a traditional pitched roof.”