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In the poorer sections of the city are many houses occupied by two, three, or four families. They are generally not side-by-side with separate entrances, so not semi-detached. Should these be tagged as house, residential, or apartment? I'm thinking I should probably go with detached for single family home, residential for two or three family houses, and apartments for buildings classified by the assessor's office as such.

There are also many buildings originally built as houses, but converted to offices or shops. I have been tagging them as houses, then tagging with office= or shop=, but perhaps they would better be tagged as residential, as I don't know if they were originally for a single family.

asked 25 Mar '19, 08:07

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Steve
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On a related note, is there a way of tagging the number of units/apartments/families in a building?

(25 Mar '19, 08:55) Steve

I tag any building inhabited by more than one family as building=apartments. building=residential should only be used if you don't know what kind of residential building it is.

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answered 25 Mar '19, 10:18

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Discostu36
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I would only tag building=apartments on buildings built that way. If larger detached houses have been converted into apartments then building=house (or detached) and building:use=apartments. At least in Britain we now have many buildings which are now used as apartments which were built as offices, churches, pubs or industrial premises. In most cases their appearance reflects their original purpose which is often useful information to hold in OSM.

Note there are buildings in a number of countries which contain two dwelling units, but which would not be referred to as apartments, for instance maisonettes in the UK.

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answered 25 Mar '19, 10:55

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SK53 ♦
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How can I know if a larger detached house was originally built for one or two accommodation units?

(25 Mar '19, 12:29) Discostu36

Usually quite to very easy (at least here). In the UK these are usually older houses (Edwardian or older), and often conform to a standard housing type, which was built for single family occupation. If you don't know you can go with residential, house or even apartments: OSM is always open to refinement. It matters less for this sort of building than for those where the original use is abundantly obvious (like churches).

(25 Mar '19, 15:40) SK53 ♦
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question asked: 25 Mar '19, 08:07

question was seen: 1,446 times

last updated: 25 Mar '19, 15:40

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum