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Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
You know, at some point you have to wonder whether we would even have a housing crisis if there were no limitations on height and FAR. If developers were allowed to build to market demands (i.e. let’s say double the number of residential units per project), how much would our housing supply have increased over the past decade?
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It could also bring down costs. When more units and height are allowed, the land cost per unit goes down. There's a sweet spot for density from an economic perspective and there's no way for planners to know that ahead of time. Given inflation and the unpredictably high growth that's happened, I would expect those planning limits to be far below optimal economic point now. The idea of setting prescriptive heights for years or decades in the future is folly.
I think the argument for predictability and effective approval is a good one but it's true whether a given plot has a height limit of 6 floors or 60 floors, and it is important to be agile.
HRM is really shooting itself in the foot with the low height limits on land it owns and might sell like the Cogswell parcels. I wonder if council will realize that they could charge more if they were zoned for 40 floors or if they'll just sleepwalk through wasting millions more there. I doubt they would have implemented the ramparts rule if it had the true price tag attached!
Another thing to consider is that the living space provided by tents or tiny homes is miniscule compared to how much square footage HRM has cut off from projects. Or the living space of houses formerly occupying now empty lots. It's an epic fail IMO.