don't think that's what's holding construction back. most developers won't want to build too high as it'd get progresively more expensive per floor and more footage dedicated to elevators anyway. also packing so much density in a single area would be bad for community resources in the area.

Developers don't want to build? Is that why air rights sell for between 200 and 400 a square foot. In many parts of the country actual construction costs $200 per square foot. In NYC that is the minimum to buy the right to construct a square foot of space.

In my experience as a residential architect, developers are absolutely trying to fit in as many units/floors/FAR as they are allowed by zoning.

That being said, I don’t think removing FAR caps is the solution. Even increasing FAR by 1 uniforming across the city can have a huge effect.

Why bother, just get rid of the cap and let property owners build as tall as they want until we no longer have a housing crisis.

There’s a humanitarian problem caused by having too little of something necessary for human life but we’re going to have the government tell people it’s illegal to make more of it? Fucking dumb.

Build more transit then?

We desperately need more housing and builders are falling over themselves to build it, literally just stop making it illegal.

>also packing so much density in a single area would be bad for community resources in the area.

Unless the extra height is used to build a few more ultra-luxury penthouses in the sky.

In which case, they will sit mostly empty (some out-of-town billionaire who is not consuming any resources in the city) while paying taxes. Which almost anyone who puts ideology aside can see as net win for the city.

Always gets me when people complain about that, just raise taxes on it and have fun with the free money.

And before someone says "wItH wHaT mOnEy" property taxes exist

More density means worse community services. This is why rural Idaho is world renowned for having excellent community services

We have lots of unused empty space in the sky.

Free money and jobs when constructing, free money with transfer taxes, free money when they pay property taxes.

And when they visit the NYC once or twice a year, let them spend money here too. Billionaires can go anywhere in the world. NYC is one of the few cities in the world positioned to capture their consumption money by the shovels.

sure, if you're into the Idaho amenities. More density here means crowded subways and grocery stores though

The part about the tall height would mean almost certainly it would be luxury. In the best case: yea, it'll be an investment by wealthy foreign owners who would never live there or use any of the building/community services, but probably just as likely it'd be turned into an airbnb listing with a revolving door of new neighbors.

I think they were being sarcastic and you missed it.....

What is the downside of just removing it altogether?

The best way to respond to sarcasm is with more sarcasm and it was sarcasm to beginwith

then go build the transit. what'll likely happen is the housing development gets built and there's no more new transit. The investment in transit in the form of capital projects of tunnels is going to cost more than the building. Nobody is falling over themselves to build housing or it'd already be built with exemptions. The higher it goes the more likely it'll be unaffordable luxury. The types of housing that needs to be built, capital efficient affordable housing isn't being limited by the ratio cap, it's just a dumb opinion piece.

LVTs would be such a godsend in this city.

What is "capital efficient affordable housing". Do you have a way of building housing for 300k per unit in the middle of NYC? I suggest you go to a bank and get some capital to make it a reality if you do, because you would become a millionaire very quickly.

By the way if you don't build luxury housing the rich people who would live in it don't just disappear. They come to your landlord, make a high offer for your unit, and gut renovate it. If "don't build and the rich won't exist" theory was true, San Francisco's outer districts would have very cheap rents.

constructing a twenty story two hundred unit building for 700 million vs four hundred forty story for two billion. exactly as it sounds. I don't know why you'd assume rich would disappear, I'm not saying it. I'm just saying building taller would require you to build more expensive and it's not the ratio that's holding it back. IT's good to hear you know how economics works for supply in a free market. Now apply it to the constraints of building taller. There's no way you'd get more more taller without dedicating more space to making your building work and make it less efficient.