I always thought this sounded like a good idea too (let the original owner stay, just in a new apartment-amongst-many) but (at least in the US) this doesn't seem reasonable.

Besides any legal hiccups (how common are such contracts? Is this well-understood law or are we trailblazing this?) there's the practical concern that if I sell my place and it takes a year or two to build the housing complex, well, I still need a place to live while it's under constructions.

I think the best that current American society could do is "...if the former owner could be guaranteed enough money from the sale to move someplace else nearby".

Still - if anyone has ideas about how to sell one's current residence so that more dense housing could be built, and then one could move into an apartment/condo in that new, denser, housing I'd be really curious to hear them.

(Depending on how life goes, it might be relevant to myself in the next 5-10 years)

You’d want to give up your land-valuable, single-family residence for the opportunity to move into a unit in a multi-tenant building on the same land? If I were a developer, I’d gladly take that deal.

If there are more people like you, maybe I’ll become a developer.

While it isn't exactly analogous, property developers that build residential high-rises often have as part of their contract an option for a desirable unit in the building on very generous terms. Builder occupied units in new buildings are not that uncommon. There is no reason you could not extend such terms to the landowner.

These redevelopment plans are fairly common in Urban Asian countries.

Single family homes are redeveloped into 7-8 floor condos and 4-5plexes are frequently redeveloped into 12-15 floor condos. The residents are paid handsomely in rent for a few years and the new apartment is usually more luxurious and larger.

It's a win win

"Don't worry, the law guarantees that after taxes on the land and home you spent decades paying for are so high you can't afford them you can get one of the pieces after we take it away and chop it up" is one of the most dystopian things I've ever heard.

When you say "...home you spent decades paying for..." it comes across like you are implying that the money you spent is somehow disappearing or being stolen. However, if the land value taxes have dramatically increased, then that means that the value of your property has dramatically increased, so you can sell for a dramatic profit.

It would still suck to have to sell, but it's not nearly as dark as you seem to be suggesting.

Why should you have to do anything? My binder of pokémon cards is worth thousands of times what I paid for it but nobody has the right to levy an unending amount of taxes on it until I can't afford to not sell it.

if

It’s better than what we have now, even without that caveat