When money is growing on trees, pick it.

If you have an undeveloped piece of land worth X, and it becomes worth Y if you put a skyscraper on it, then you do it as long as the cost of construction is less than Y-X.

Sure, you can make money by doing nothing, if the price of land is going up. But you can make that money plus the money you make by building the skyscraper by, you know, building the skyscraper.

If you're not willing to do that because of the increased taxes on the skyscraper, then either you're refusing dollars to avoid spending a dime, or the tax regime in your city is really out of control.

So I'm not buying your argument here at all. Developers develop because they make money doing it. The absence of a land-value tax isn't what stops them.