Building Height Restrictions Research Articles

FAR regulations and the spatial size of Brazilian cities

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the influence of the maximum allowed floor area ratio (FAR) on the spatial size of Brazilian cities. We built a novel database on building height restrictions for the 325 largest cities in the country and combined it with recent satellite data. Our estimations show that, as predicted by the monocentric model, tighter constraints are associated with larger urban areas, and this result is robust to several specifications, sensitivity tests and different estimation strategies. Additionally, back-of-the-envelope calculations show that a higher stringency of the building-height regulation generates an annual cost of about US$9.67 million per average Brazilian city.

Assessment of Land Capability for Urban Building Height Planning in Bukittinggi, Indonesia

With urban development and rapid growth, the challenge of land capability to accommodate urbanization is becoming increasingly complex. Therefore, the concept of a "vertical city" has surfaced, indicating the importance of integrating sustainable development with spatial and building height restrictions. This study aimed to analyze the land capability of Bukittinggi City in relation to building height control. The methodology adopted adhered to the Ministry of Public Works Regulation Number 20/PRT/M.200 and relevant literature, using the scoring and overlay method with ArcGIS tools. The analysis results showed that the majority of Bukittinggi's area had a relatively high level of land capability, with a significant portion covering 71.3% of the total territory. Moreover, most buildings adhered to the land capability, even though seven unsuitable buildings were identified. These results served as a crucial basis for making informed decisions regarding land use and fostering sustainable urban development.

Theoretical Building Height Limits of Balloon Mass Timber Shear Wall Systems

Theoretical Building Height Limits of Balloon Mass Timber Shear Wall Systems

Design and Application of New Support and Power System of Residential Building Machine

In recent years, with the transformation and upgrading of national development and the acceleration of urbanization, the construction mode of high energy consumption, high pollution and high labor intensity in the construction industry can no longer meet the development needs. The State Council and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development have successfully issued policies and initiatives to improve industrialization and intelligent construction. In 2021, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued a building height limit order, and it has become a trend that aerial building machines have begun to diversify into ordinary high-rise residences. The "14th Five-Year Plan" construction industry development plan issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development proposed accelerating the coordinated development of intelligent construction and new building industrialization and promoting digital design, intelligent production and intelligent construction. In response to the national policy guidance and leading the development of the industry, solve the inherent problems in the construction industry, learn from the application concept of super high-rise heavy-duty construction equipment integration, create a "factory-like" construction environment for ordinary high-rise through lightweight, standardization and intelligent and other innovative technologies, and explore a construction integration platform suitable for high-rise residences, called "high-rise building industrialization construction lightweight construction operation integration platform" (referred to as "building machine"). Based on the first generation of building construction machines, continuous improvement and replacement, the supporting power system has dramatically improved in support capacity and lightweight. The effective combination of a support column, hydraulic cylinder, and pump station has been realized, which is more convenient and faster, and the construction is more efficient.

Rencana Tapak (Siteplan) sebagai Persyaratan Mutlak Penerbitan Persetujuan Bangunan Gedung (PBG) di Kabupaten Tangerang (Studi Kasus: Proses Permohonan Siteplan (Rencana Tapak) Lapangan Basket)

The planning stage in project management is indispensable, where the planning contains technical and non-technical plans for a construction project to be executed (Executing). Planning has an important role so that the construction project will be carried out in accordance with the initiation set by the owner, and the building being built does not violate the rules set by the Regional Government at the location where the building will be erected. Site plan (Site plan) plays an important role in the planning stage. The site plan (Site plan) contains information regarding the direction of land use to be erected by the executor of the building construction. The information contained in the Site Plan includes: Percentage of land area that can be utilized for constructing buildings, Boundary Lines of Buildings to Roads, Building Height Limits, directions for providing Green Open Spaces (RTH) which function as water catchments, modeling of access in and out of land to be used. With the existence of a site plan, the building designed by the architect will be more organized in accordance with the applicable Tangerang Regency Spatial Planning Regulations. A site plan that has been approved by the Regional Government of Tangerang Regency is an important document and an absolute requirement for obtaining a Building Approval (PBG).

Estimating the effect of land use regulation on land price: At the kink point of building height limits in Fukuoka

This study estimates the effect of land use regulation on land price by exploiting the feature of building height limits of the aviation law in Fukuoka, Japan. The law limits the height of a building that is within 4000 meters of an airport to 54.1 m, but when the distance exceeds 4000 meters, the limits are relaxed. Exploiting this regulation feature, we estimate the effect of the regulation on land price using the regression kink design. We find that building height restriction has a significantly negative effect on land price and the magnitude of the effects depends on the stringency of regulation.

소규모주택재건축사업의 주민 선호도 요인 분석 - 의정부시를 중심으로 -

This study suggested improvement measures to enhance the preference of residents in areas where projects are scheduled to be possible through empirical analysis on the preference of residents in small-scale housing reconstruction projects. As a result of the analysis, the significance of the factors of the promotion entity was significant in ⅰ) securing the expertise of union executives, ⅱ) fair management of union and union leaders, and ⅲ) managing interests among suppliers It shall focus on securing the expertise of union executives, fair management of union leaders, and management of interests among partners, and reflect them in the business plan. Second, the significance of tax and institutional support factors was significant in i) the necessity of supporting various levies, and ⅱ) the necessity of simplifying administrative procedures The necessity of supporting various levies and the need to simplify administrative procedures are reflected in the project plan. Third, the significance of the factors for improving the residential environment is i) the need to ease landscape standards, ⅱ) the need to relax the standards of the building rate, ⅲ) The results were significant in the need to ease building height restrictions The need to ease the landscape standards, the need to ease the construction rate standards, and the easing of building height restrictions should be reflected in the project plan. Fourth, the significance of legal aid factors is i) the issue of an un-consented person's request for sale, ⅱ) Significant results were shown in the factors for improving the consent requirements for the establishment of the union The improvement of the sales request problem of the non-consented person and the requirements for consent to establish a union are reflected in the business plan. When planning a small-scale housing reconstruction project as above, the project entity suggests that it should refer to the analysis of residents' preferences and reflect it in the project plan.

Denied delights of daylight in density: Optimizing building codes to achieve maximum daylight in apartments of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Daylight-inclusive building codes are difficult to establish for rapidly developing dense urban centers in the global south. Obstruction Angle (OA) has long been used as a precursor in daylight-inclusive building codes. However, such codes are more suitable for higher latitude cities with low-rise developments but less effective in low latitude dense cities such as Dhaka. Existing research established Unobstructed Vision Area (UVA) as a critical daylight precursor for dense urban developments. This study further established Canyon Wall Porosity (CWP) as another critical daylight precursor and detailed a CWP calculation method. Via OA, UVA, and CWP, this study examined existing Dhaka building codes against optimal values for setbacks, building height limit, Floor Area Ratio (FAR) and Maximum Ground Coverage (MGC). The findings revealed: (a) 63° OA is critical for Dhaka, and it should be used to set setbacks distances and building height limits (b) front setbacks could be narrower as streets assist in sustaining 63° OA, but rear-setbacks should be significantly wider (c) MGC should be lower to achieve high CWP for adequate daylight. These findings, especially the introduction of CWP for daylight inclusivity, could be a catalyst for solar legislation in other mega-urban centers on similar latitudes.

The financialisation of floor space, Mumbai 1880–2015

This paper traces the financialisation of policy instruments regulating floor space, namely, building height restrictions in Mumbai from 1880 to 2015. It describes and explains the shift from prescriptive regulation to hybrid market-based incentive. Drawing on original archival research and interviews with 80 policy experts, findings show that height restrictions shifted from ad hoc rules, to prescribed heights, to floor space index, and finally to market-based air rights. Paradoxically, the local state has used financialised floor space as an incentive to achieve social goals such as slum redevelopment, while the policy remains controversial and beset by conflict. The state has played a key role in financialising floor space, in the process creating a hybrid instrument with multiple constituencies. The conclusion explores how a history of building regulations can advance comparative urbanism.

Development of Building Bye-Laws in Nepal

Massive increase in population, high demand of urban infrastructure and limited availability of land resources is a global concern. When the inner part of a town becomes more and more congested, it expands towards municipal limits. Effective development control rules in such situation is imperative to tackle the important issues such as environmental degradation, pollution, overcrowding, congestion due to buildings in contravention of development control rules, narrow streets having no further scope for widening, buildings devoid of proper lighting and ventilation due to violation of setback rules, exceeding building height limit and tendency to utilize FAR fully by covering the entire plot area. Such situations affect systematic development. The reason may be either the building byelaws, under which existing development control rules are enforced, are too weak and inappropriate in addressing the problems of physical development or they are outdated and no longer suit the present socio-economic context. Nepal is not an exception to the same. So, this research is to study building bylaws in different time periods focused to manage development of Kathmandu City of Nepal based on literature review. How to cite this article: Mishra AK. Development of Building Bye-Laws in Nepal. J Adv Res Const Urban Arch 2019; 4(3&4): 17-29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2456.9925.201904

Seismic performance and height limits of ductile reinforced masonry shear wall buildings with boundary elements

The National Building Code of Canada, NBCC-15 has recently added a new Seismic Force Resisting System (SFRS) category, ductile shear walls, for Reinforced Masonry (RM) buildings. Although it was assigned a higher ductility-related force modification factor compared to that of moderately ductile walls, NBCC-15 assigned the same building height limits for the ductile and moderately ductile RM walls. This study aims to assess (i.e. numerically) the seismic performance and collapse capacity of ductile RM buildings, having heights exceeding the code limit, built using ductile RM shear walls with boundary elements as the SFRS. The main objective is to propose height limits based on solid and objective seismic performance acceptance criteria. In this regard, six archetype buildings with varying heights are designed according to CSA S304-14 with ductile RM structural walls having confined boundary elements. The reference buildings are located in two regions representing the high and moderate seismicity levels of NBCC-15. The seismic performance is evaluated using nonlinear pseudo-static pushover and Incremental Dynamic Analyses (IDA). The quantification of seismic performance and collapse capacity is executed using the procedure outlined in FEMA P695. This research study contributes to the understanding of the seismic performance and collapse capacity of ductile RM shear wall buildings with boundary elements. It provides practical design recommendations to enhance the overall system performance. In addition, the study proposes a simple, yet efficient nonlinear numerical macro-modeling approach for RM shear walls. Finally, based on the findings of this study, it is suggested to assign a 70 m limit for the height of buildings in moderate seismicity regions and a 50 m limit for the buildings in regions with high seismic hazard.

Frequency Domain Analysis for Geometric Nonlinear Seismic Response of Tall Reinforced Concrete Buildings

This paper aims to study the second-order geometric nonlinearity effects of P-Delta on the dynamic response of tall reinforced concrete buildings due to a wide range of earthquake ground motion forces, including minor earthquake up to moderate and strong earthquakes. The frequency domain dynamic analysis procedure was used for response assessment. Reinforced concrete building models with different heights up to 50 stories were analyzed. The finite element software ETABS (version 16.0.3) was used to analyze reinforced concrete building models.
 The study reveals that the percentage increase in buildings' sway and drift due to P-Delta effects are nearly constant for specific building height irrespective of the seismic design category assigned to the building. Generally, increase in building lateral displacement and story drift due to P-Delta effects for all seismic design categories is less than 2% for 10 story buildings, whereas this increase for 20 stories or taller buildings is significant with a maximum value around 16% for 50 story building. As for column forces, the study shows that, generally, columns bending moment increases and shear force decreases when P-Delta effects accounted for. In conclusion, the study recommended that the effects of P-Delta need to be addressed for all SDCs allowed by ASCE7-10 and the most important factor to abandonment P-Delta effects is the building height limit.

Fire safety in high-rise buildings under elderly housing

As China has entered the aging society, most of the buildings are concern to the use of elderly. When fire occurs in crowded places, the elderly casualties will take up larger proportion. However, current residential design code did not made special targeted requirements of this kind of buildings in construction standards and building design for there is a lack of elderly building security legal documents and data support. To solve this problem, it is considered the provisions of the building height restrictions from the perspective of construction safety in the revision process of Code for design of residential building for the aged. The purpose is from the angle of architecture and improves the elderly living safety to reduce fire evacuation process in risk. Furthermore, the building plane complexity and other internal factors will also become an important factor affecting the evacuation. This study focus on the tall residential buildings, several different numerical simulations are carried out to clarify the main influence factors of evacuation in elderly concentrated buildings and to provide data support for the architectural design and standard formulation.

Impact of Morphological Characteristics of Green Roofs on Pedestrian Cooling in Subtropical Climates.

Growing and densifying cities set a challenge for preserving and enhancing green spaces to cool urban spaces. Green roofs, involving the planting of vegetation on rooftops, are regarded as an alternative approach to enhancing urban greenery and urban cooling. For better cooling performances, it is essential to reasonably configure green roofs, especially in real and complex neighborhoods. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of morphological characteristics of green roofs on pedestrian cooling in real and complex neighborhoods. In specific, based on an ENVI-met model, we studied the effect of greening layout, coverage ratio, vegetation height, and building height on pedestrian air temperature reduction in the tropical city of Hangzhou, China. Results indicate green roofs could generate moderate effects on pedestrian air temperature reduction (around 0.10–0.30 °C), while achieving a cooling performance of 0.82 °C. Green roofs in upwind zones were able to generate the most favorable cooling performance, while green roofs in downwind zones made slight differences to pedestrian thermal environments. Green roofs with a low coverage ratio were not useful for lowering pedestrian temperature, and a greening coverage ratio of 25–75% in upwind zones was cost-effective in real neighborhoods. Locations that were horizontally close to green roofs enjoyed better cooling performances. Increasing vegetation height could strengthen cooling effects of green roofs, while an increase in building height weakened the cooling performance. Nevertheless, higher building height could enhance pedestrian cooling performances because of building shading effects. In addition, because of wind effects and building shading, building height limits for the cooling performance of green roofs could be higher than 60 m.

Second-best urban tolls in a monocentric city with housing market regulations

This paper investigates second-best congestion pricing in a monocentric city characterized by distortionary regulations in the housing market (building height restrictions, no-development areas and property taxation). We demonstrate that the welfare gain of a Pigouvian tax may first fall and then increase as building height restrictions become more stringent. For example, a Pigouvian toll imposed in a city without restrictions may produce up to 40% larger welfare gains than Pigouvian tolling in a city with a mild, uniform in space, floor-to-area ratio restriction. In the presence of a tax-induced distortion, deviations of the Pigouvian toll can lead to non-negligible welfare gains. We discuss the important policy implications of the above findings.

Urbanization and Carbon Emissions in India and China

This article understands, from an empirical perspective, the determinants of carbon emissions, using internationally comparable data, and cross-national regressions for India and China. Next, it explores the relationship between urban land use regulations and carbon emissions in India’s cities. Urbanization has no impact on carbon emissions per capita or per unit of geographical area. Electricity consumption in China and electricity produced from coal in India have a positive effect on carbon emissions. GDP per capita has a positive effect in India and not so in China, but per capita GDP squared has a negative impact on emissions in both the countries. Does this imply that urbanization should be ignored in the two countries? The answer is no, because a city’s urban form, to which policy contributes, is correlated with carbon emissions. More suburbanized cities which sprawl more also emit more carbon. India’s land use regulations relating to building height restrictions are conservative, hence Indian cities sprawl, which lead to carbon emissions. Hence, the focus of urban policy has to be on the development of compact cities. The article concludes with caveats of the data.

Building Height Limits for Steel Intermediate Moment Frames

Steel intermediate moment frames (IMF) have been widely used as a seismic force resisting system in regions of low and moderate seismicity. In this study, the seismic collapse performance of the steel IMFs designed according to current seismic code was evaluated. For this purpose, 25 steel IMFs were designed according to seismic design codes (ASCE 7-10, AISC 341-10, and AISC 360-10), and the probability of collapse for these frames was estimated. The probability of collapse of steel IMFs became larger with an increase in the height of the frames. Based on the results, this study investigated the validity of height limits for steel IMFs specified in ASCE 7-10 and proposed limits to guarantee satisfactory seismic collapse performance.

Measuring the Stringency of Land Use Regulation: The Case of China's Building Height Limits

This paper develops a new approach for measuring the stringency of a major form of land use regulation, building height restrictions, and applies it to an extraordinary data set of land-lease transactions from China. Our theory shows that the elasticity of land price with respect to the floor area ratio (FAR), a building height indicator, is a measure of the regulation's stringency (the extent to which FAR is kept below the free-market level). Using a national sample, estimation allowing this elasticity to be city-specific shows variation in the stringency of FAR regulation across Chinese cities. Single-city estimation for Beijing shows that stringency varies with site characteristics.

Will skyscrapers save the planet? Building height limits and urban greenhouse gas emissions

This paper studies the effectiveness of building height limits as a policy to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It shows that building height limits lead to urban sprawl and higher emissions from commuting. On the other hand, aggregate housing consumption may decrease, which reduces emissions from residential energy use. A numerical model is used to evaluate whether total GHG emissions may be lower under building height restrictions. Welfare is not concave in the strictness of building height limits, so either no limit or a very strict one (depending on the strength of the externality) might maximize welfare. The paper discusses several extensions, such as congestion, endogenous transport mode choice, migration, and urban heat island effect.

Measuring the Stringency of Land-Use Regulation: The Case of China's Building-Height Limits

This paper develops a new approach for measuring the stringency of a major form of land-use regulation, building-height restrictions, and it applies the method to an extraordinary dataset of land-lease transactions from China. Our theory shows that the elasticity of land price with respect to the oor-area ratio (FAR), an indicator of the allowed building height for the parcel, is a measure of the regulation’s stringency (the extent to which FAR is kept below the free-market level). Using a national sample, estimation that allows this elasticity to be city-specific shows substantial variation in the stringency of FAR regulation across Chinese cities, and additional evidence suggests that stringency depends on certain city characteristics in a predictable fashion. Single-city estimation for the large Beijing subsample, where site characteristics can be added to the regression, indicates that the stringency of FAR regulation varies with certain site characteristics, again in a predictable way (being high near the Tiananmen historical sites). Further results using a different dataset show that FAR limits in Beijing are adjusted in reponse to demand forces created by new subway stops.