Friday, April 12, 2013

Microunits may become the new normal


From Crains:

The Bloomberg administration has taken a small step toward building tiny apartments. The mayor's micro-apartments, officially known as adAPT NYC, were certified by the City Planning Commission on Monday, and will now go through the labyrinthine, half-year-long public approval process.

The milestone is especially significant because the micro-units tweak the zoning code in a number of ways, and having those changes vetted by the community, the commission and the City Council could prove an important test of the project's viability—and possible expansion onto other sites. An expansion is something the administration has been seriously considering, given adAPT NYC's popularity in the development community.

On the one hand, adAPT NYC is seen as an innovative way to provide cheaper—if not necessarily affordable—apartments by making them smaller, and thus cramming more units into a building—mitigating the city's expensive land and construction costs. (Those costs will further be driven down by Monadnock's decision to construct the project using pre-built modular units, the first time the cutting-edge process will be put to use in Manhattan.)

However, some have criticized the project because they fear that, once developers win the right to build smaller units, that will become the norm, further starving space-constrained New Yorkers of living space. When the city launched the micro-apartment competition last year, it called for units ranging in size from 250 square feet to 375 square feet in size.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how many of these projects will be viable in the outer boros?

Jerry Rotondi said...

If I were dumb enough to want to occupy a Manhattan shoe box (micro unit) for--what ???, about $2,000+ monthly--it had better be designed by Gucci!

No thanks! That ain't living. It's packaging!
I'll stick to Queens, even with its dullards and corrupt officials.

You can breathe out here, and still be close enough to the "big island" when you need an urban cultural fix.

Anonymous said...

This would look like luxury living to a Latino, living with 20 others packed into a Corona cellar.

At least this way each one of them would have their own bathroom.

Anonymous said...

Wonderful...prefab beehive cells for human drones.

Anonymous said...

Jerry

You can be assured that once this is in the mix, it will flood Queens.

Anonymous said...

billionaire Bloomberg's big plan for the little people.

Anonymous said...

This would look like luxury living to a Latino, living with 20 others packed into a Corona cellar.

At least this way each one of them would have their own bathroom.
---------------------

No, they will still try to cram 8-12 into one of these units

Anonymous said...

Ever seen the Japanese morgue-like drawer-bed "motels"?

Anonymous said...

Folks don't want to live in the outer boros no more, cause gas costs too much, and cars get stolen

Anonymous said...

When do we say enough, the city is full? Not one new unit of housing should be allowed until mass transit the road and highway infrastructure the water sewage and power systems are able to handle all these people.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
When do we say enough, the city is full? Not one new unit of housing should be allowed until mass transit the road and highway infrastructure the water sewage and power systems are able to handle all these people.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I concur!!!

Anonymous said...

Jacob Riis is rolling in his grave.

Anonymous said...

This only works in communities with people who don't hang around at home. They only use them to sleep, bathe and sometimes eat in. These people spend their waking hrs at work, hanging out at parks, coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and book stores. You can count the hours awake spent at home during the week on one or two hands. Most of that is in the shower, sorting laundry, and cleaning.

Joe said...

In Amsterdam they make these out of re-cycled shipping containers. They are very cheap to buy, convert and start renting.

In Manhattan a developer can slap up 50 rental units on a 20X60 dirt lot almost overnight with little paperwork and inspections and start raking in $100,000 a month.

Anonymous said...

How does the square footage of one of these boxes compare to the floor space of a prison cell in Club Fed?

Big Jake said...

Mista...
my trailer in Texas offers better accommodations.
And they call me Pecos River trailer trash.

Wadda ya call these inhabitants?

Jerry Rotondi said...

Given a choice, Joe, I'd prefer living in one of those shipping containers.

That way if the neighborhood suddenly goes bad,
I can easily move.

Anonymous said...

how many people do they want packed into Manhattan? when I was a kid growing up Manhattan was a place to go to work not to live. now its both, and only for the very wealthy. actually the whole city is becoming only for the wealthy.