Quote:
Originally Posted by someone123
What has happened is that the city used to have 30 storey zoning, but then due to the housing accelerator fund they permitted 40 storeys in a few areas. There is some 40 storey zoned land on both the Halifax and Dartmouth sides and each side has I believe one project that's in some form of construction or site prep (Young and Windsor on the Halifax side). There are now lots of 30 storey zoned sites and it's becoming a pretty standard residential highrise height in the city.
The area below the Citadel is under various height limits that allow at most 80-90 m, and often much less.
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Halifax's path sounds like Toronto's about 20 years ago, where builders sort of "organically" push the height limit based on the economics of feasibility and what they're able to get away with, so it's like a rising tide where 30 storeys is the new norm, then 40, then 50...
I don't think this is due to market demand or even land costs. The cost of land in downtown Toronto would have still been higher in 2005 than it is in Halifax in 2025, especially when you compare to places like Dartmouth or the north end of Halifax. But that's when Toronto developers started to plan and build towers the heights of which Halifax is building now. There are many cities where land is much more expensive than Halifax that don't build 40 storey towers, or even have developers propose 40 storey towers with the expectation that it'll be cut down in size.