NYC Housing Shortage Answer or Not?
Click Link below for short video clip of NYC 1st Mirco Unit in Manhattan.
What do you think?
Can These Micro-Units Fix New York City's Housing Problems?
by
Alissa Walker
What do you think?
Can These Micro-Units Fix New York City's Housing Problems?
by
Alissa Walker
Micro-unit developments—new apartments that are 400 square
feet or smaller—are sprouting up all over the country as cities try to cram
more housing into their neighborhoods. New York City’s first micro-unit
development opened this month and it’s controversial—even in a city where
people already pay top dollar to live in tiny apartments.
We recently took a tour of a new micro-unit development
called Ollie that just opened in Manhattan. Although Mayor Bill de Blasio is
behind the most recent campaign to bring 80,000 affordable housing units to New
York City, the push for this particular housing typology originally came from
the previous city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who hosted a micro-unit design
competition in 2012. The winning concept by Brooklyn-based nArchitects was this
55-unit tower, which was prefabricated in a Brooklyn factory to save money and
energy.
Fast forward to 2015 and behold Ollie at Carmel Place,
located in the rather sleepy mid-Manhattan neighborhood of Kips Bay. The unit
we toured with Ollie’s design director Jacqueline Schmidt was 302 square
feet—made to feel even bigger with extra tall ceilings, shiny new appliances,
and lots of blonde wood. In fact, the units come furnished with an array of
shape-shifting built-ins and customized furniture that allow residents to make
their living space feel bigger and more flexible. Plus all residents get free
access to an app, Hello Alfred, which acts as a type of virtual concierge for
tasks like pet-walking or picking up dry cleaning. The units range from $2000
to $3000 per month.
But wait, you’re saying, I already know people who pay way
more than that to live in apartments much smaller than 302 square feet. Yes,
New York has its fair share of shoebox-sized apartments, but you couldn’t build
those from the ground up today. Technically the city requires all new
apartments to be larger than 400 square feet, mostly to prevent developers from
replicating tenement-type living conditions. But these apartments at Ollie are
exempt, as part of this attempt to add more affordable housing to the local
stock. (Some cities like Seattle are allowing units as small as 90 square
feet.)
Now wait another second, you’re saying, $2500 to $3000 for a
studio in Kips Bay is not affordable! That’s only the market rate (which is
actually about the median Manhattan rent for a studio). The rents for the 22
affordable housing units are set at different rates based on income and need.
Prospective tenants apply through a lottery and might pay anywhere from $1000
to $1500. 60,000 people applied.
So yeah, no one can deny that the demand isn’t there for
these types of units. But the bigger question is if these units are actually
the right kind of new housing for cities to be building. If we’re talking big
picture here, the building as a whole is far more responsible than tacking yet
another megadevelopment on the edge of sprawl, forcing all its residents to
drive. But the worry is that these tiny spaces will become the new slums of the
city, mostly occupied by lower-income residents who don’t have much of a choice
about where to live, further stratifying inequality problems. In cities like
Los Angeles, for example, micro-units are still mostly being used as
transitional housing for formerly homeless individuals.
Living in microscopic spaces has become almost a cultish
badge of honor for some big city residents (and some rural folks, ahem, tiny
house movement) who will probably be very excited about these units. And with
the help of some very smart interior design, like at Ollie, a micro-unit can
appeal to someone who might not have previously considered the option. For the
right person—say, a baby boomer looking to downsize from a bigger apartment or
a millennial who’d rather live close to work than commute—this sounds like the
ideal living situation.
Whether we’re ready for it or not, it’s important to note
that this is the future. In fact, the US is lagging far behind many other
countries which already have micro-units as a vibrant part of their urban
fabric. In a few decades most of the world’s population will be living highly
urbanized lifestyles and US cities need to start preparing for this reality
now. It will take time to close the gaps in already-dense, transit-served
neighborhoods so that the people who want to live there can find affordable
homes. Embracing this way of micro-life is an inevitable reality, as tough as
it may be for some Americans to confront.
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