A state lawmaker is gunning for more aggressive restrictions on the vast mechanical voids developers often abuse to boost their buildings’ heights as a “more robust” solution to the de Blasio administration’s recent zoning amendment. [...]
Current zoning exempts mechanical voids from a building’s floor-area ratio (FAR)—a given property’s square footage—and puts no height limits on those spaces.
— Curbed NY
"Luxury developers often exploit this loophole in residential towers to hike up the price for apartments on higher floors," explains Curbed NY one reasoning behind the newly introduced bill by New York State Assembly member Linda Rosenthal.
This is a very bad idea. Making this kind of blanket design restriction would limit design, make buildings more expensive not less expensive. If excessive height is a concern then they should enact height maximums, not regulate floor to floor heights.
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This is a very bad idea. Making this kind of blanket design restriction would limit design, make buildings more expensive not less expensive. If excessive height is a concern then they should enact height maximums, not regulate floor to floor heights.
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T-bar @ 7'-6" A.F.F.
What more do you really need?
Legislation to protect centimillionaire luxury apartment buyers from the depredations of billionaire developers is way overdue.
In that case they should simply enforce a maximum height limit of the entire building, with or without mechanical voids doesn't matter. But restricting ceiling heights is just ridiculous, there should be a minimum ceiling height yes, but a maximum?
I think it's only a matter of time before topics and others like it that relate to this new building type of supertall residential towers create new regulations that will be accepted into the IBC. If you think about it in a certain light, a ceiling height restriction, over time, could be as important and significant in shaping NYC as the 1916 Zoning Resolution.
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