Micro-apartments next for S.F.?
Are itty-bitty apartments the next wave for urban dwellers in San Francisco?
The
city is considering shrinking the minimum size of rental units,
prompted by a demographic shift toward one-person households along with
rising rents and an acute housing shortage.
"This seems like a logical, necessary response to housing in an extremely high-cost market like San Francisco," said Tim Colen, executive director of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition,
a largely developer-backed nonprofit that is "solidly behind" cutting
the size of the smallest allowable apartment by about a third.
The
new minimum would be 150 square feet plus kitchen, bathroom and closet -
220 square feet in total, about the size of a one-car garage. The
current minimum with all rooms included is 290 square feet.
"The goal is to provide flexibility to affordable and market-rate developers to produce all sorts of housing," said Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose proposal to reduce apartment sizes will be considered by the Board of Supervisors
on July 24. "The fact is 41 percent of San Franciscans live alone.
There are a lot of people who don't need or can't afford a lot
of space."
Some housing advocates dispute the idea that
micro-units address escalating rents, saying that the compact dwellings
are cheaper simply because they're smaller.
"It's disingenuous to say it creates affordable housing, it's just that you get significantly less space," said Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco. "This doesn't create affordable housing, it simply creates another lifestyle option."
She
also worries that the "shoe-box" units could create a slippery slope of
allowing other exemptions on considerations like natural light and
ceiling height.
On the drawing board
Patrick Kennedy of Berkeley developer Panoramic Interests
hopes to build the micro-units in SoMa on the site of a former guitar
store at Ninth and Mission streets - "right in the thick of the new
Twittersphere there." He anticipates housing young tech workers, fresh
out of college, newly relocated to the city, unencumbered by possessions.
"That
demographic cohort wants to continue their collegiate experience for an
indefinite amount of time," Kennedy said. "I envision this as a
launching space as they get established."
His planned 160-unit
building, now in the entitlement process, will have lots of common
areas: a huge lobby, a lounge on every floor and a rooftop deck. It will
also have some larger apartments. It's designed for car-free living;
the only parking will be for bikes, with a City CarShare spot outside.
The
ultra-efficient efficiencies will go for $1,300 to $1,500 a month, he
said. Per city regulations, 15 percent of the units will be allocated as
below market rate for low-income residents; he thinks those would rent
for around $900 a month.
The current average rent for a San Francisco studio apartment is $2,075 a month, according to real estate
service RealFacts. Those studios average 493 square feet, making the
per-square foot price $4.21. Kennedy's proposed units, at 220 square
feet, would rent for $5.91 to $6.82 per foot - a big premium.
Prototype 'smart unit'
Kennedy
built a 160-square-foot prototype "smart unit" in a Berkeley warehouse.
As compact and functional as a ship's cabin, the main
living/sleeping/eating/cooking room feels larger than its 10-by-11-foot
dimensions, in part because of a coved 9-foot-4-inch ceiling and a
bay window.
Every inch plays multiple roles. A built-in counter
doubles as the kitchen work area and computer desk. A dining banquette
converts into a guest bed; the couch becomes a queen-size bed. The foyer
functions as an entryway, closet, dressing area and "appliance garage"
for a refrigerator, microwave and toaster oven.
An MIT grad
student lived in the unit for three weeks to help work out the kinks.
Her feedback will inform some changes in version 2.0 - bigger sinks in
the kitchen and bathroom, a pull-down Murphy bed, and most critically, a
traditional tub-shower in the bathroom, instead of the "Euro-style"
shower that drains right onto the bathroom floor.
"I believe
there is a large and unmet need for entry-level, car-free housing in a
transit rich and culturally rich city like San Francisco," Kennedy said.
"A smaller unit size makes meeting this need more feasible and gives
people a choice not available now."
New York effort
Similar trends led New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg
to announce a contest this month for developers to design a building of
micro-apartments measuring 275 to 300 square feet. The winner gets to
construct its brainchild at a city-owned site in the Kips
Bay neighborhood.
Wiener's proposal would limit the change to new construction so landlords couldn't chop up existing rentals into micro-units and would limit occupancy to two people maximum.
A
bigger supply of smaller units would relieve pressure on other housing
stock, Colen said.
"The small efficiency dwelling units give people the
option of living on their own and not have to occupy family-sized
housing with a bunch of other unrelated adults."
[ via @SFGate ]
Janice Lee
415-832-9151
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International President’s Circle
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