[Tagging] landuse=construction vs. building=construction

[L. David Baron]

While trying to map some building construction sites in the South of
Market (SoMA) neighborhood in San Francisco (near the office where I
work), I was unsure whether to use building=construction or
landuse=construction.

The documentation available at:
  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dconstruction
    (see "Original proposal for this tag" link to
     http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Approved_features/Building_site )
  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:building
suggests that landuse=construction should be used for a large
construction site in which a region is covered by construction.
There is a major such site in the area, the Transbay Terminal
construction project, mapped as
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/89383754 and
http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/113511443 , which is clearly
using landuse=construction correctly.  This documentation suggests,
on the other hand, that a single building under construction should
use building=construction.

However, there is substantial existing usage in the neighborhood of
landuse=construction for the construction site of a single building,
such as many of the small rectangles in
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=37.788&lon=-122.39363&zoom=17&layers=M

Use of landuse=construction also seems to have the advantage of
distinct rendering in the standard OSM Mapnik style and tool support
in Potlatch, one or both of which could be the reason for the
existing practice in the area.

In particular, I added two ways using building=construction:
  http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/228167970 is an apartment
  tower under construction.  It's currently a structure about 15
  stories high, and getting higher every week.

  http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/227689990 is a square pit
  in the ground that has construction vehicles digging the hole in
  which a building is going to be built.

Though the wiki seems to suggest to me that building=construction is
correct for both of these, it also seems possible that
landuse=construction might be preferable, either for both, or
perhaps only for the second.

This leads me to the questions:

 * Should these ways be tagged as building=construction or
   landuse=construction?

 * If they should be tagged as building=construction, should the
   standard map style display building=construction differently
   (perhaps more like landuse=construction)?

-David

-- 
𝄞   L. David Baron                         http://dbaron.org/   𝄂
𝄢   Mozilla                           http://www.mozilla.org/   𝄂