I can see the merits of your argument, but I am still reluctant to suggest that the city should try to out-think developers. If everyone is fine with Victoria Park being filled with 20-storey towers, it's just very strange to suggest that the city should impose a 6-storey height limit, because land buyers -- putting their private capital at risk -- are too dumb to calculate that they cannot make money building 20 storey towers.
I would lean towards using height limits to communicate to developers what our city's infrastructure and land use patterns will support, and let them decide what built form maximizes their private profits. If there is no chance of a tower being economic on a particular site, then the value of a parcel zoned for 20 storeys should be about the same as the value of a parcel zoned for 6 storeys, and the city's decision to zone it for 20 storeys will have no effect on the value of the land.
If a buyer is willing to pay more for the land after the upzoning, they are betting that a tower will be economic at some point, and it is strange to second-guess the buyer's decision to risk their own money on that speculative risk.
Ya, my bad i don't really mean cap height, i mean don't give away too much FAR for every situation. I don't think that we should limit heights as that doesn't allow for things like better ceiling height in the unit or taller buildings if people so choose. In the Victoria Park example what i am saying is that the expected FAR's are too high in my opinion, i could care less about what the heights are tbh. The City giving away too much density everywhere is the problem and very often the people they give the density to are only using it to inflate the perceived land value and have no intention of developing the land. I'm a builder, so i am all for letting us decide what built form maximizes profits and want flexibility. Too many people pumping land prices and sitting on unproductive land for far too long, holding out for someone ready to make a huge density play, not a low-rise play that could happen today.
What i am saying is that i think the City could be more savvy about who they give away density to. There are a lot of land speculators sitting on parcels of land that are zoned for towers that aren't going to budge in the medium term, as they are very likely not economical to build as towers. For example, if Minto or Jemm purchases a site and they submit a LOC and DP concurrently, treat the application more seriously and give away appropriate density in this case. If a company like Landstar, Cantana or Torode come forward with an LOC application for double the density of what the ARP or LAP is saying, with only a massing model and vague commitments to 'good design' as merits for more density, don't take them seriously. They haven't built anything in decades (and in some cases, ever) and are only looking to get the land lift. Those lots very often end up sitting underutilized for decades to come (Landstar's 16 Ave N and Inglewood sites come to mind) and these groups have an incredibly low chance of ever proceeding forward with a DP application in line with the LOC that can accommodate the large building they asked for in the LOC.
I am not interested in grandiose plans for towers in places like East Victoria Park, around the industrial area near Crossroads Market, or in TOD locations that command lower price points. That land strategy is exactly how you get Arriva and the Guardian Towers surrounding by a sea of gravel parking lots for decades and decades. The downtown and beltline have a lot of underutilized land in them and we don't need to be handing out tower densities everywhere until the available developable land for towers begins to be constrained. Vancouver's downtown, West End, Coal Harbour and Yaletown got to be the place it is today where the urban fabric doesn't have gaps of surface parking lots and seriously underutilized buildings (like Calgary) by relatively restricting densities in surrounding Vancouver neighbourhoods to primarily low-rise with some mid-rise. This strategy coupled with strategic improvements to the public realm have had a lot to do with creating a very dense and nice downtown peninsula that feels "complete". Now Vancouver needs to add considerably more density outside of the downtown peninsula due to land constraints in the downtown and False Creek areas and sustained, high demand for high-rise living. Calgary gives away so much density everywhere that there is no advantage to picking up a downtown site. No need to effectively zone for a new future downtown at Midtown (from a "developer" that has never built a residential building) until land pressures downtown create that need. Midtown would be better as a low and mid-rise play, in that case it could actually develop in the short to medium term. I would rather see our urban fabric filled in with low-rise buildings in 20 years than wait 50 years for towers and never really filling in our inner-city surface parking lots.
Not sure if this explanation makes sense, but it is my opinion. Hopefully that clarifies it a little.
Besides, Calgary is one of those weird cities where very low scale development transitions immediately to high-rises, and we could use more of a medium density transition as we get closer to the Beltline and Downtown. Make East Victoria Park the Calgary version of this:
