For planning nerds, which cities have the higher Floor Area Ratios new development?

[C.]

I don't believe there is a common source of data out there, but I'm curious which cities are seeing the higher FARs for new development?

My guess is Toronto has the distinction for seeing the higher overall. It also has the distinction of having the weirdest planning regime where it's zoning maps and plans don't really have the same weight as other jurisdictions because they're so out of date.

New York City has a FAR cap of 12 on residential development that's baked into State law. That's relatively low compared to the rest of the country.

What else is out there?

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by C.

New York City has a FAR cap of 12 on residential development that's baked into State law. That's relatively low compared to the rest of the country.

Kind of a moot point, since probably 99% of all residential developments in the country, outside of Jersey city, are below 12 FAR.
Just to demonstrate how low the bar is, people here celebrate when their city allows to finally build apartment buildings instead of SFHs.
I'd guess even in Miami, most new resi construction is below 12 FAR.

[C.]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Kind of a moot point, since probably 99% of all residential developments in the country, outside of Jersey city, are below 12 FAR.
Just to demonstrate how low the bar is, people here celebrate when their city allows to finally build apartment buildings instead of SFHs.
I'd guess even in Miami, most new resi construction is below 12 FAR.

Makes sense. Does Jersey City really lead the County in that case? The Journal Square areas has developments in the 25 FAR range. There is a proposal to further increase that by another 20 floors if some affordable housing is provided. It's very generous and developers have been using the full zoning allowance.

I'm nearly certain Toronto has the highest in North America though. Not sure about other Canadian cities.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by C.

Makes sense. Does Jersey City really lead the County in that case? The Journal Square areas has developments in the 25 FAR range. There is a proposal to further increase that by another 20 floors if some affordable housing is provided. It's very generous and developers have been using the full zoning allowance.

I'm nearly certain Toronto has the highest in North America though. Not sure about other Canadian cities.

It is hard to tell unless you have the actual numbers. Even NYC itself builds well below 12 FAR.
I've never seen new construction in Toronto statistics by floor height.

[C.]

Hence the purpose of this thread.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by C.

I don't believe there is a common source of data out there, but I'm curious which cities are seeing the higher FARs for new development?

My guess is Toronto has the distinction for seeing the higher overall. It also has the distinction of having the weirdest planning regime where it's zoning maps and plans don't really have the same weight as other jurisdictions because they're so out of date.

New York City has a FAR cap of 12 on residential development that's baked into State law. That's relatively low compared to the rest of the country.

What else is out there?

Off the top of my head, 19 Bloor West in Toronto has what we call FSI (same thing) of 59.5

[Klippenstein]

I'd guess those supertall residential high-rises that buy up all the air rights around them in NYC have the highest FARs in the world if you're just looking at the footprint of the building. But since they bought other building's rights does that count against them? I guess it depends what exactly you're just looking for especially since all these rules change from place to place.

[C.]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

I'd guess those supertall residential high-rises that buy up all the air rights around them in NYC have the highest FARs in the world if you're just looking at the footprint of the building. But since they bought other building's rights does that count against them? I guess it depends what exactly you're just looking for especially since all these rules change from place to place.

In theory, they have a FAR of 12 due to State law. Not exactly sure how that works. I suspect is that although they are very tall, the habitable square feet isn't that much. I would appreciate if anyone had a very detailed breakdown on how exactly the FAR for those superstalls were developed.

[mhays]

Seattle doesn't apply FAR to residential projects in greater Downtown. We get residential projects in the 40+ range if you do the math.

Perversely, residential towers are limited in facade width and floor area above a certain level, so they can't do "slabs" that would be more efficient. Most of our residential towers are squarish in plan, around 12,500 sf max floorplates iirc.

Our max FAR for commercial uses is 21.

[C.]

Originally Posted by mhays

Seattle doesn't apply FAR to residential projects in greater Downtown. We get residential projects in the 40+ range if you do the math.

Perversely, residential towers are limited in facade width and floor area above a certain level, so they can't do "slabs" that would be more efficient. Most of our residential towers are squarish in plan, around 12,500 sf max floorplates iirc.

Our max FAR for commercial uses is 21.

Thanks! Seattle is a lot higher than I thought. Again, this is a fun, nerdy urban planning exercise since there isn't really a resources that lists all these and some off the radar cities have a lot higher FAR allowance than I would have guessed.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by mhays

Perversely, residential towers are limited in facade width and floor area above a certain level, so they can't do "slabs" that would be more efficient. Most of our residential towers are squarish in plan, around 12,500 sf max floorplates iirc.

Our max FAR for commercial uses is 21.

For Toronto, Floorplate guidelines for residential here dictate a max of 750m2, or 807ft2.

They are not utterly rigid........but you need to have a good reason to go over.

Commercial is generally more liberal....allowing more slab-style buildings if desired.

[Steely Dan]

The maximum base FAR in Chicago is found in D-16 zoning districts, with a base FAR max of 16.0

However, there are so many different bonuses available to attain more FAR, plus a mechanism for developers to literally just buy more FAR above any given base threshold in D districts, such that many large projects exceed base FAR limits, sometimes significantly so.


If you're curious about FAR rules in general, throughout all of Chicago's 8 billion various zoning districts, read chapters 17-2 thru 17-8 of Title 17 of the Chicago Zoning Ordinance.

To say that "it's complicated", is the understatement of the millennium.

[Crawford]

For NY, yes, it's currently 12, and the state is in the process of lifting the cap, but it doesn't matter that much in practice, as there are so many potential variables (air rights transfers, transit district bonuses, affordable housing bonuses) that there likely aren't too many newer buildings with exact 12 FAR, and tons of newer buildings far exceed 12 FAR.

[mhays]

Seattle's 21 is only a limited district and includes bonuses. I don't know if any bonuses are outside this. TDRs probably are.

Residential doesn't count in FAR calculations. You can build a 484' residential tower straight up from the property lines if the site is smaller than the 12,500 sf floorplate limit, in the 440/484' zones common on the Downtown fringes. One tower does this to the full extent on its own 10,665 sf block, but it was built when the zoning was 400/440'. Another tower at that height is on 8,358 sf but it's coordinated with a historic building next door and would've been a combined FAR denominator.

More common are residential towers at 440' or 484' with small setbacks. (Floorplate limits used to be a little smaller also.) I see completed towers on 12,960, 13,334, 14,160, and 14,158 sf. One that's planned is 44 stories on 6,480 sf.

We have land use approvals for residential/mixed towers in 550/605' zones, moving slowly due to the market, the smallest being sites of 12,720, 13,555 sf, and 13,551 sf. They could have FARs around 50.