[Tagging] landuse=single family houses/apartments

[Alan Mintz]

At 2010-09-04 09:12, Erik Johansson wrote:
>I would like to tag areas with apartment buildings, and small houses
>for a  single family differently, at the moment I tag all of them with
>  landuse=residential. I need good terminology in english to tag them.

I've taken a slightly different approach. I use landuse=residential to 
outline the entire related area. I then add that way to a relation with 
role=boundary. I add the various buildings, roads leading to and within, 
swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. to the relation. On the relation 
itself, I tag:

type=site
+ site=housing
+ housing={house|apartment|condominium|mobile_home|public_housing}
: house is a single-family detached dwelling where the owner owns the land 
and the buildings on it
: apartment is a multi-family dwelling where the tenants pay rent to the 
owner of the buildings and land
: condominium is where the tenant "owns" the building (or part of one, as 
they are often attached like apartments), but not the land, and pays 
proportional rent and maintenance fees for the land and common areas.
: mobile_home is similar to condominium, but using pre-fabricated housing 
instead of permanent structures
: public_housing is generally apartments (though occasionally houses) that 
are owned by a government agency and occupied by low-income/disabled tenants.

Here's an example of apartment: 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/relation/194049 at 
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=34.079189&lon=-117.560582&zoom=18&layers=M&relation=194049

--
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.net>