NYC Planners Turning Toward Tiny, ‘Micro-Unit’ Dwellings (Bonus: 1-Square-Meter House)
- Posted on July 11, 2012 at 7:40am by
Liz Klimas
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In this photo provided by the New York Mayor's office, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, stands with Amanda Burden, left, Department of City Planning Director, and Commissioner Mathew Wambua, Department of Housing Preservation and Development, in the kitchenette area of a full-scale mockup of a 300 square foot apartment. (Photo: AP/Edward Reed)
NEW YORK (The Blaze/AP) — Here on The Blaze, we’ve been covering tiny houses and other unique dwellings for a while. Now, New York City planners are more formally catching onto the trend, thinking studio apartments measuring no more than 300 square feet might be attractive to a growing population of singles and two-person households.
(Related: See other Blaze stories regarding the tiny house movement)
And in a nation that’s becoming increasingly populous and increasingly urbanized — and where people more frequently are creating a family of one — such downsizing may not stop here.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday invited developers to propose ways to turn a Manhattan lot into an apartment building filled mostly with what officials are calling “micro-units” — dwellings complete with a bathroom, built-in kitchenette and enough space for a careful planner to use a fold-out bed as both sleeping space and living room.
Watch Bloomberg’s announcement:
If the pilot program is successful, officials could ultimately overturn a requirement that new apartments here be at least 400 square feet.
City planners envision a future in which the young, the cash-poor and empty nesters flock to such small dwellings — each not much bigger than a dorm room. In a pricey real estate market where about one-third of renter households spend more than half their income on rent, it could make housing more affordable.
Manhattan is the U.S. capital of solo living, with 46.3 percent of households consisting of one person, according to the 2010 census. City officials estimate that 76 percent of residents on the island live alone or with one other person — and such households are growing faster around the city than any other type of living situation. Officials attribute the trend in part to young professionals delaying both marriage and childbearing.
Around the country, more people are living alone than ever before. The solo living rate rose to almost 27 percent in 2010, according to the census.
In New York City, where long working hours can leave little time for home life, renters often sacrifice square footage to save money. The size of city apartments has been lampooned on television, with at least one sitcom showing characters living — literally — in a closet. Some New Yorkers, desperate for storage space and uninterested in the finer points of homemaking, turn their ovens into storage for clothes or other items.
Especially alone, paying New York City rents can be a challenge — and officials said they hoped smaller apartments would help ease the financial burden on residents facing average market-rate rents of $2,000 per month for a studio and $2,700 per month for a one-bedroom. Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Mathew Wambua said he expected the micro-units would rent for significantly less.
Similar programs have been proposed in other cities. In San Francisco, developers are seeking permission to rent out apartments as small as 150 square feet. Still, even these tiny apartments cannot necessarily boast to be the smallest. A Berlin-based architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel has created what is being called the world’s smallest house if it can even be considered a house. Dubbed the One SQM House (it is only one square meter in size), the tiny dwelling appears more like a dog house than something for a human being, but it can sit and sleep one. And, as the designer points out, it is something you can call a home all your own.
(Image: YouTube screenshot)
(Image: YouTube screenshot)
Learn more about the house in this video:
How much does one of these 1-square-meter homes cost? You can build one yourself — they provide building workshops — for $300.
But back to New York City’s plan. Ultimately, the program could be expanded to outer-borough neighborhoods where the apartments could provide safer options to the lower-income residents who are most at risk from the dangers of illegal subdivisions. With only 1 million studio and one-bedroom apartments available for 1.8 million one- and two-person households, the shortage is forcing low-income renters into illegal apartments that can become fire traps, Bloomberg said.
In recent years, small homes have been celebrated by design aficionados who argue that minimal space, less clutter and simpler living is both financially and spiritually freeing, but the idea of towers of tiny units raises the specter of an era in which poor residents were crammed into unsafe tenements where they could afford the rent.
City officials argued this proposal was utterly different from such wholesale warehousing of the poor.
“The tenement problem was big families in very small (spaces),” Bloomberg said. “We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about one or two people who want something they can afford, and they don’t entertain or need big space.”
Modern-day building codes and improved refrigeration and public health have changed what it means to live small, Bloomberg said. A typical mid-19th century tenement apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side might have been larger than one of the micro-units, measuring 325 square feet, but would have typically housed families with multiple children. The micro-units are to be leased only to one- or two-person households.
As long as living conditions are good, housing advocate Kerri White said she had no particular concerns about the program.
“The general attitude toward space and how we use space is very different in New York City,” said White, a director for housing advocacy group Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. “People are used to living in smaller quarters.”
The program is a design competition called “adAPT NYC,” which requires submissions to its request for proposals by Sept. 14. Read more about the competition and adAPT NYC program here.
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Comments (83)
Frodo RinosBane
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:42amWow! Their jail cells are much more roomy.
Report Post »georgette
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 10:20ammore dumbing down of “expectations ” …..a designer Borg hive..
like throwing butter on gravel and calling it popcorn…..
Report Post »G-WHIZ
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 12:48pmThe “men’s” bathroom is a small hole in the floor and on the wall……the “womans’-room” is 2000sq-ft addition.
Report Post »dmerwin
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 11:56pmExcellent plan, all public housing can be converted to this model. Want welfare, we have your square meter of housing and 2200 calories of healthy food and transportation to seek employment. With that house we shouldn’t have to worry about expanding welfare families.
Report Post »Brooke Lorren
Posted on July 12, 2012 at 4:49amI have a pop-up tent that’s bigger… it fits three sleeping bags and a couple of suitcases. I’d rather sleep in that. It cost me a lot less than $300. I picked it up for about $50 at Wal-Mart.
Report Post »JONNYREB
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:36amWhere’s the crarpper?
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:46amPelosi’s mouth,that’s where it comes from.
Report Post »Shasta
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 11:26amIt is the crapper.
Report Post »NOBALONEY
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:28amZero populaton growth planning.
Report Post »brntout
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 10:26amCan anyone say Agenda 21?
Report Post »hatchetjob
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 11:51amThey did mention empty nester’s, so it’s not completely zero population growth, but I know what you mean.
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:24amCentral planners are truly evil,just look at their handy work in N.Korea Cuba and the old Soviet Union.Our central planners are no different and they’ll gleefully put us in a box alive or dead,tell us what to eat ,drive and everything else.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:49amIndeed, I imagine the Progressives are salavating at the thought of such homes for all the citizens, save themselves of course.
Report Post »Meyvn
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:21amWhat a joke. They can probably bury people in these too. It’s like a casket on wheels.
Report Post »Plankchapel
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:26amWell, yeah! I thought about that, too, but I didn’t want to let my paranoia show more than it already has! :D
Report Post »Plankchapel
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:21amPeople in compacted cities are more easily controlled. Electric cars have to be recharged; 20 miles to work and 20 miles home — plug it in! The rapid transit is designed to bring people to the city. The UN wants control of the rural areas, the water, the air, and our property! (Think: Agenda 21.)
Report Post »BloodSweatandTears
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 12:58pmAnd take a look at this, It’s closer than we think. …The short list VP Portman had no qualms about putting a bill in the hopper that promises to saddle our country with another massive federal bureaucracy: The Global Conservation Act of 2012.
It mandates:
In General- Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President, acting through the Interagency Working Group on Global Conservation designated pursuant to section 202(a), shall establish and submit to the appropriate congressional committees a comprehensive strategy (hereafter referred to as the `International Conservation Strategy’) to strengthen the capacity of the United States to collaborate with other countries, international organizations, the private sector, and private voluntary organizations on a sustained international effort to conserve natural resources and enhance biodiversity in a manner beneficial to the economic well-being and security of the United States and other participating countries.
If you’d like to read more go to redstate .com and look down the right menu…
Report Post »Silversmith
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:06amLet’s see ….. smaller sodas … smaller houses .. smaller apartments — Soon you’ll owe Bloomberg just for living!! See a pattern here??? Get him out NYC!!
Silversmith
Report Post »progressiveslayer
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:20amSmaller government will solve most of our problems,if we can put government in it’s place this republic can begin to heal.
Report Post »Roberto G. Vasquez
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:25amIsn’t that how the communists provided for the common people back in the old USSR? Little boxes, little boxes, oh how wonderful!
Report Post »RightPolitically
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:57amThis is the “Spoils” telling the rest of U.S. how much space we’re going to be permitted. Amazing. Amanda Burden, wealthy socialite with botique city job and Mayor Bloomberg (wealthy self-made man), nothing wrong with that, both of whom live like royalty, setting the table standard we are to follow. Of course, they had to have their “token” black official standing beside them to make it kosher. It’s kind of like Congress, with their own “gold-plated” medical plan putting the rest of U.S. into Obama Care. Ya gotta love the irony!
Report Post »oldsoldier10
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:56amThe ideal casket living system, easy to pave over the peasants and set the next lot of serfs up for execution BLOOMBERG is a moron! in my opinion
Report Post »Cjinx79
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:51amWhen Bloomberg moves in to one, count me in and make me his NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR. Until that happens, he can go pound sand.
Report Post »MRMANN
Posted on July 12, 2012 at 6:16amI certainly agree with you, only I would not like to have Bloomberg living next door!
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:40amThere will be more room without all of those big gulp cups laying around.
Report Post »hatchetjob
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 11:52amYes, but the big gulp cups can be recycled into urinals for this new living arrangement.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 12:48pmNow you’re thinking Hatch! You could work for the NYC zoning commission!
Report Post »Dismayed Veteran
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:38amWelcome to the Hive. Of course, any children are moved to the “village care center”.
Report Post »Gonzo
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:12amWell, the government IS far better equiped to raise our children than we are Vet. (Sarcasm)
Report Post »Temporal
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:31amAnd soon NYC will deem any dwelling over 300 sq. ft. “excessive” so they can impose yet another punitive tax.
Report Post »RoboZiggy
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:30am“in the kitchenette area of a full-scale mockup of a 300 square foot apartment. ”
Report Post »WOW, looks like the apartment Willis lived in in the movie “5th Element”.
It is what they thought would happen, and it looks like it will.
moreteaplease
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:28amDownsizing the American Dream. We now live in a country of diminishing goals.
Report Post »9111315
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:24amI see the light — but where is the battery? How about a flush toilet — or do they just plan to use cop cars.
Dreams not based in reality. NYC.
Report Post »Dismayed Veteran
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:35amThere is no sink. Just a multipurpose bowl with a faucet and a flush handle.
Report Post »9111315
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 10:30amJust one more reason to pass on this idea.
Report Post »Rob
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:23amWe are Borg!
Report Post »toiletclogga
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:11amIn 70-100 years everybody will be living in a 1 sq. meter home, or an urn depending on whether or not you want to be cremated. NYC is becoming more bizarre everyday.
Report Post »deeberj
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:08amMakes me happy I live in a rural area, although it’s fast becoming filled up with mcmansions.
Report Post »objectivetruth
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 9:38amYou need to do everything in your power to prevent another one from being built.If you don’t you will quickly be overcome with those who seek to displace you.Those who have that much money have a tendency to bulldoze overtop those whose families farmed hunted fished.In other words normal everyday rural america.They will attempt to subdivide and buy up all the land around you as well.They have millions and billions and think you should adapt to there lifestyle.Rather than the other way around.They will if given the chance make it impossible to pass the land to your children grandchildren exc.;It will become so expenxive that they won’t be able to afford it.
Report Post »Note please consult a map of Jamaat al fuqura compounds.If you have property anywhere near them you need to go on gaurd pronto.If you or anyone in the immediate family has served in the military you need to go on red alert.These freaks will do just about anything to get your land,Unlike a regular greedy realtor these people have no qualms about torture.They enjoy it and watching you lose everything you worked for.They enjoy that as much if not more than the loss of your lifes work savings exc.
poorrichard09
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:01amIf 0bama’s re-elected, we’ll all be living in something like this, which by the way, looks every bit like an old fashioned OUTHOUSE.
Report Post »stumpy68
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:29amWho knows maybe he’s sitting over the hole.
Report Post »PelositheGreat
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 7:59amDirectly from the UN Agenda 21 ‘sustainable cities’ program. Read this months Pop Sci magazine. The polan is to build 9 billion of these things.
Report Post »RightUnite
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 7:55amWhen Bloomberg lives in one, I’ll believe it….. Otherwise, not so much.
Report Post »Welcome Black Carter
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 1:47pmThis from the guy who has a 110 volt air conditioner run to his car so he won’t have to experience a “Hot” car. I’m sure he does want this… FOR US!
Report Post »Dougral Supports Israel
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 7:52amThe urban planners think we should be more like bees, living in tight quarters and existing under regimented conditions.
Report Post »HumbleCitizen
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 7:49amNothing but a closet. Smaller than a prisoner’s room or a parking lot space. Who the heck would agree to “live” in a box?
Report Post »cassandra
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 7:46amCan you say CHINA<RUSSIA
Report Post »1956
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:03amYes, this is exactly like China and their tiny homes – only they will have extended family in theirs… Grandpa and Grandma, son, daughter-in-law, and child.
We are becoming caged animals.
Report Post »starman70
Posted on July 11, 2012 at 8:11amYEP!! I CAN SAY CHINA AND RUSSIA!
Central planners ala Stalin and Mao are at work in America.
Report Post »