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Old Posted Aug 1, 2015, 5:58 PM
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ardecila ardecila is offline
TL;DR
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: the city o'wind
Posts: 16,356
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Downtown View Post
Why can this determination not simply be left to the market? What is the public policy served by forcing landowners to not build anything until they can satisfy skyscraper fans?

It's one thing to support additional density around CTA stations, but quite another to complain about townhouses on sites where there is no transit at all, such as Riverside Park or Finkl or the Prairie District.
Well, there's a big donut hole in the building code between townhouses and skyscrapers. Midrise buildings are really appropriate for these transitional areas around downtown, but they fall under highrise building codes, so they're only feasible once land values go beyond a certain point and you can justify the cost of Type I construction, sprinklers, elevators, etc.

In other cities (DC, SF, Seattle, etc) innovative developers have figured out that they can do wood-framed midrises on a concrete podium under IBC up to 7 or 8 stories. Requirements are far more onerous and costly in Chicago to build a building of similar size....
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