Tuesday, December 29, 2015

No limit to microunits?


From the Daily News:

Manhattan's newest mini apartments have generated maximum interest.

More than 60,000 people applied to live in 14 below-market-rate apartments ranging from 265 to 360 square feet, slightly bigger than the size of an average one-car garage.

In response, the de Blasio administration is proposing to end a limit on how small apartments can be, opening the door to more "micro-apartments" that advocates see as affordable spaces to help the growing population.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Japan has "capsule hotels" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel)

Anonymous said...

I think the cells at Rikers are a little bigger.

Anonymous said...

More than 60,000 people applied to live in 14 below-market-rate apartments ranging from 265 to 360 square feet, slightly bigger than the size of an average one-car garage.

No matter how many times I read this sentence, the impact never lessens.

Anonymous said...

That's smaller than most Cruise Ship Cabins!

Anonymous said...

enjoying the Obama economy???????

Joe Moretti said...

Anonymous said...

More than 60,000 people applied to live in 14 below-market-rate apartments ranging from 265 to 360 square feet, slightly bigger than the size of an average one-car garage.

No matter how many times I read this sentence, the impact never lessens.
--------------------------------

The impact is even more when you think of the price of what pretty much amounts to a large public handicap toilet stall.

For 11 units, the rent will be $950 a month, records show. The remaining three below-market units will cost $1,490 a month.

I mean WHY would one pay this huge amount for a jail cell. There is one born every second.

Anonymous said...

In 50 years, people will be happy to live in closet-sized rooms-- at least in Manhattan. It is inevitable. God stopped making more New York real estate eons ago.

Anonymous said...

Sign of the times and it's getting worst every day.
"A fool and his money are soon parted" applies here in NYC when you take in the insane rents working people must pay to live here.

Anonymously Grey Gardens said...

Alas, the systemic corruption that continues to empower the few, at the expense of the masses just keeps getting worse by the hour---a testament to all epic, humanitarian, ecological and political fail.

I have already memorialized the New York City that I used to know and love, and said farewell to it long ago. Corrupt, politically failed leadership and corporate bought, oligarchy rule have all but abrogated all of our previous rights, freedoms, liberty---and democracy itself (which, like all truth, is now a closely held commodity, awarded to the highest bidder)!

New York is an official sanctuary city, like Venezuela's capital, Caracas itself (extreme pockets of wealth and privilege, surrounded by abject poverty, shanty towns, beggary, obscurity and quiet desperation). Likewise, London, Vancouver and San Francisco have succumbed to government sanctioned Caste systems of income inequality, that only continues to enslave its lost and languishing subjects into years of 'Big Government' dependence, that creates a system that continues to reward the 'Too Big to Fail' banksters, oligarchs and henchmen, while punishing the invisible, downsized, displaced peasants of lower middle class society with more of the same public squalor, versus private splendor---exactly what Neo-Feudalism, Neo-Fascism and Neo-Bolshevism have always dictated.

Ironically, our nation's immigrants have always fled all other oppressive, monarchy ruled countries and Feudal systems, in order to live freely in America, which is no longer free, and now in active adoption of the same religious and other grinding persecutions from which they escaped!

As the old Yiddish proverb correctly maintains: The way it ends---is the way it begins!

Anonymous said...

Great news for Flooshing. Now we can see if 1 million people per square mile can be achieved.
What about some go karts to go with the new micro units?
These assholes really have no shame when it comes to destroying the city while lining their pockets.

Anonymous said...

they have been doing this for years, don't u remember?

Anonymous said...

Richard, what's all that have to do with the micro apartments? You left out the connection.

Anonymous said...

Location, location, location.

And none of you have any say in the price landlord charges renter, by the way. Get over yourself already.

Anonymous said...

Just like all those single room occupancy buildings there used to be in New York until the late 1970s when nyc real estate became valuable again.Remember when you used to be able to rent a room at the YMCAs in flushing and Jamaica.

Anonymous said...

Anon #14:
You can still rent a room at the YMCA for up to 30 days.

Anonymous said...

There are plenty of people living in their cars

(sarc) said...

Perhaps this is the way that they address the homeless crisis...

Anonymous said...

The issue is not the apartments-- people will live in anything. The issue is when tens of thousands more people per month/per year flood into the the already overburdened, over capacity transit system. That is when the problems start.

JQ LLC said...

The inspiration for this? and note the image I posted, doesn't look much different than every tower that has sprouted in western Queens and Brooklyn.

http://inhabitat.com/nyc/photos-couple-moves-into-stacked-shipping-container-home-in-williamsburg-brooklyn/wburg-shipping-containerlea/

http://neatcontainers.com/gallery/albums/mini/normal_DSCF0457.jpg

I am a bit skeptical about the amount of stupid fuckers applying for these urban affordable luxury storage units. That would mean that this generation of youth is the dumbest of any before. Or the need for housing is so desperate, which is more likely, that even those with lower salaries that couldn't win the affordable housing lottery are willing to sacrifice personal space and their sanity just to get a better and more convenient place to live.

The gentrification real estate complex is really out of control now. And it's official that with these dwellings, tenants have become commodities like tuna, especially since both are being similarly packaged is disturbingly uncanny (or is it literally canny?),

Aside from the loss of the last great rock'n'roller Lemmy, this story really ends this rotten year on a low note. I mean is that the window, or is that a glass door leading to a balcony, or a perch? And what, no photos of the bathroom? It probably has less room than a pig's crate in New Jersey.

And Iritano's comments are very relevant for this issue and story, it was the failed, corrupt, oligarch leader Mayor Fun Size who approved this site, despite the Daily News reference of a antiquated law that made this abomination in Kips Bay possible. And the rezoning of air rights will probably produce more of these for the 20 or 30 lower AMI apts. so they can make more room and higher ceilings for the Higher market rate apartments. I hope this is the reason the boro presidents shot down the mayor's plans.

Mayor Big Pussy has materialized into Faust when it comes to dealing with the hedonists of real estate,development and their goons,and even with some of his sociopath city planners and advisers (I'm looking at you Alicia Glen). As long as they contribute monies to his agenda, then everything else is moot. Even a decent apartment and the ability to have personal savings. And any sense of enjoyment, leisure and relaxation in the town you live in,

http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2015/12/de-blasios-defense-of-donations-from.html

For Lemmy and everyone that counts that our city no longer bothers to,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV6noHEd6XE

JQ LLC said...

Oh, I forgot, What's going to happen when there's a fire. How will they get out? These units are smaller than crematory ovens.

Camel bladder said...

So mayor Wilheim thinks these tiny cells will help ease the housing shortage experienced by the growing population? Come on folks, does anyone believe that building more apts, what ever size they are, will ease the housing shortage. A popular city will always have a shortage of housing. Building more units will only attract more people. The only thing building more accomplishes is making the city more overcrowded. The only thing that will ease the housing shortage is to make the city about as attractive as Newark or Detroit. And we might be heading there eventually.

JQ LLC said...

this is actually the video I intended to paste.

For lemmy, philty, wurzel and everyone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h45WnW0ASFY

Happy New Year (at least try)

(sarc) said...

Anonymous said...
The issue is not the apartments-- people will live in anything. The issue is when tens of thousands more people per month/per year flood into the the already overburdened, over capacity transit system. That is when the problems start.

Are you forgetting the bicycle lames?

Let us see what happens when you mix Damascus, Beijing, and of course Detroit.

And I think we are now in the express lane to there...

Anonymous said...

R.I.P. Lemmy.


There's clearly a demand, why not increase the supply? NYC isn't getting any bigger, and more and more people want to live here. These sort of micro-apartments would be perfect for midtown.

JQ LLC said...

...people will live in anything

That's the disturbing takeaway. Like cigarettes and hoverboards, people will buy anything even if it's potentially hazardous or a confirmed hazard, and life is peachy because the demand is filled.

But what these creeps are proposing should not stand, the only demand this will benefit is not the tenants who need them but for the irresponsible agenda of the Mayor and the coffers of predatory developers and property owners. And this news story I mean advertisement unfortunately proves that the plans are already set in stone for the lower classes yearning to live comfortably.

And when all this is finished, it's going to be a critical mess. (Sarc)'s prophecy of the city resembling Beijing doesn't sound hyperbolic, although I think it will resemble that in the concentrated areas in northwest Queens downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. And the city and transit services will only and barely maintain those areas while the remainder of the boroughs south and east will continue to be neglected.

Happy New Year everyone. R.I.P. Common sense, decency and consideration.

Anonymously Grey Gardens said...

To answer your question, Anonymous, the connection that I attempted to communicate, regarding micro apartments, is that the way of life that used to empower a majority of purportedly middle class, city residents (with some modicum of fair and reasonable living space, privacy and liberating standards), is now gone forever---and, in its place, a system of grinding political corruption and commerce that is obliterating all pretense of American middle class stability, with impunity!

The answer, then, is to rescind all city council power (by, We The People---remember that quaint notion?), and expect, insist and demand that our vastly corrupt and overpaid council members stop appointing themselves to behave like de facto construction project managers, and to stop building on FINITE land space altogether!

Better still, we should likewise, presently hold an urgently needed public referendum to abolish the city council (and handpicked, city council speaker) as well---they are the epitome of all defiant, derelict, vapid and vacuous political worthlessness (and, always have been), while costing the city millions, without accountability, transparency, meaning, depth and production in return---a clear case of continual, taxation without representation, like nothing else!

Hence, a losing proposition for all---and the public be eternally duped, bilked, scammed and damned!

Anonymously Grey Gardens said...

Extremely well said (and observed), JQ, as the new year engenders a 'SAME CIRCUS, SAME CLOWNS' credo and edict.

Alas, there is a statewide (and global!), crisis in honest, ethical leadership (that leads by example), where the most entrenched cases of all political corruption, greed and graft can now be found at the origins of its breeding point---QUEENS COUNTY!

So, to what meaningful and substantive end does this, and any other blog serve, when the only people who continue to demand action, accountability, fairness and transparency, are all concerned citizens themselves (like you and me!), and NEVER the grinding, party machine robocrats (of epic, humanitarian and ecological fail), to whom they are purportedly beholden (and whose salaries are likewise paid by the almost completely powerless rank and file)?

So, the new year may be upon us, JQ---but, all of the old, rotting political rubbish (and the putrid stench, by whom they always leave the air forever polluted---as well as all terminal 'sight' pollution), is aggressively off to yet another 'Ground Hog Day' start, for more of the same arrogance, abuse, corruption, dishonesty, dishonor, disloyalty, dereliction of public duty, dysfunction, depravity, disparity and dissension (that didn't previously exist, and only does now BECAUSE of all tolerated false, fake and failed leadership), which just continues to pave the way (truly a metaphor---our Queens roadways are more lethal right now than all active landmines worldwide, and getting worse by the hour!), for systemic taxation without representation (or, rather 'selective' and 'occasional' representation), that completely reinforces a 'Delay, Deny And Hope That You Die' outcome---where, many languishing constituents ACTUALLY have ALREADY DIED!

So, Happy New Year, all Queens Crap bloggers---and, a special wish of premium health and happiness to you, JQ, and Joe Moretti, and an abundance of daily blessings to always prevail!