
Leasing Begins for New York’s First Micro-Apartments - evandijk70
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/realestate/leasing-begins-for-new-yorks-first-micro-apartments.html
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heifetz
nothing micro about the price. $2975 for a 360sq ft apartment off of 2nd
avenue, 10 minutes walk to the closest subway stop. The only saving grace is
the fact that the apartments are new builds with decent finishes (from the
pictures). Housing situation in Manhattan is certifiably nuts.

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thebiglebrewski
What can we actually do about it?

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bradleyjg
It depends on what you mean be 'we' and 'can', but Manhattan could have
significantly higher population density without overwhelming the
infrastructure. In fact, IIRC it isn't even currently at its maximum
population density.

One barrier among many to that is the overreach of the preservation movement.
Of course I think it was a tragedy what happened to the original Penn Station
but the pendulum has swung way way too far. Buildings, blocks, and even entire
neighborhoods that don't have much compelling about them at all have had
preservation related restrictions put in place. To take a specific example,
much of the East Village is downright ugly and is historically significant
only for being an affordable place for newcomers to live. The best way to
honor that legacy isn't preserving blocks and blocks of four to six story
walkups but by allowing a lot more density to bring prices down --
particularly towards the south-west part of the neighborhood where there are
more subway options.

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mahyarm
I'm starting to notice there is a general pattern of anti-development NIMBY
almost everywhere. It's either an instinct, not liking change in general, not
liking newcomers, irritation at construction or national incentives that cause
it. It's probably a combination of all of them.

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ghaff
And I suspect most of this isn't anything new. What is at least somewhat
different is that, in general, a Robert Moses [1] can't come into a city and
remake it to his vision while largely ignoring those who think differently.
This change is not entirely a bad thing. On the other hand, it often makes
things like large-scale transportation projects much more difficult to
accomplish than in the past.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses)

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IkmoIkmo
Question to all you HNs readers... what's the situation in your city/country
like when it comes to communal/shared living, particularly with 'strangers',
i.e. two young professionals who share a home for economic reasons?

Here in the Netherlands it happens but it doesn't seem to be the standard.
It's extremely popular for students, and some of the leases remain after the
students graduate and it effectively becomes a young-professional's home, and
rooms get filled up when someone leaves, usually via FB connections. But
actually applying to live with strangers say as a 29 year old is rare...
either you have your own place, or one with a partner.

The reason I ask is because, theoretically and often in practice, shared
living is more space-efficient. The living room is shared, the kitchen, the
bathroom, the washer, all the little things, and then you attach 4 bedrooms to
it, and you can get a footprint that's smaller than 4 studios with a similarly
sized kitchen/bathroom etc. But it only works if, culturally, people can
stomach living together with other people they're not family or intimate
friends with. While undoubtedly many people want their own place, in a time
(and city) of scarcity of space, I wonder if part of the solution should not
simply come from shared living, rather than more space efficient solo-living.
What's it like in your town?

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showerst
Here in DC (One of the most expensive US metro areas), it's super common to
rent a room in a 'group house' in your 20s with 2-5 other young professionals
or students. I'd say the majority of my 25-35 year old friend group started
that way, and the single ones still do.

That's partially a quirk of fast gentrification making housing super
expensive, combined with lots of housing stock that fits well (row houses),
and the fact that not many young people own cars, so parking isn't a problem.

Given the choice I'm sure virtually all of them would prefer a 1br apartment,
but that starts at $1800+/mo in the desirable parts of the city.

Previously I lived in St. Louis, which is a much more spread out, cheap
suburban city, and most of my friends had apartments.

If I had to guess I'd say the 'group house' model (whatever the local
nickname) is predominant in New York, SF, DC, Seattle, and a few other
expensive, dense cities, and rarer in the more suburban cities of the
midwest/south. In NYC people often share small apartments since even a row
house is out of reach.

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noonshine
I cannot wait for tiny house living to take off. I want to sleep in a tiny
box, have access to a super clean shower and spend 100% of my free time and
money doing fun things around town. I don't want to force other people to live
in those conditions... so how do you allow it without making it mandatory for
poor people?

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tsunamifury
As someone who lives in a Tiny House, its cute until its not. Your life grows,
but your place doesn't. Its like being planted in too small a pot. By the time
you move on, market rates for larger places to live have gone up a lot.

Its a bad solution all around.

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occamrazor
How is 25-30 m^2 considered a "micro" apartment? Sounds more like a medium-
large studio to me.

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bydo
From the article:

>Apartments in New York City ordinarily can be no smaller than 400 square
feet, but the city waived those restrictions for this development.

>Small apartments are not new to New York. Thousands of apartments that
predate the city’s 1987 zoning restrictions would be considered micro units by
today’s standards.

So they basically are just moderately sized studio apartments, and the only
notable bit is that they're the first new construction moderately sized studio
apartments in nearly thirty years.

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misiti3780
that isnt true - i currently live in a 220 sqr foot apt in the lower east side

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themagician
You live in an illegal unit.

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surement
Every time I see a story about miniature homes in Hong Kong, freight
containers, Manhattan, etc. is that I would have to give up almost all of my
hobbies if I lived like this. They are really only convenient for people who
spend very little time at home.

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gdilla
But that's what NYC life is about for many. Rents are so high that having a
lot of space means you have to be quite well off. But for most, the magic of
NYC is outside your home. When you throw a party, you don't do it at your
place, you do it at a bar. Minimizing rent means you can spend more on going
out. It'll be wildly popular for the unmarried/childless set.

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rco8786
Hmmm. A studio for 2700-3000 in that area of MH is basically market rate for
existing, 400+ sqft studios if not even a little bit high...kinda defeats the
purpose, no?

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api
These are almost what were called "coffin hotels" in Gibson's Neuromancer, but
there at least they were cheap.

Nobody writes cyberpunk fiction anymore because it's no longer fiction.

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jseliger
_The development is the product of a 2012 design competition intended to
address one of the city’s more vexing housing problems: How do you build safe,
legal and reasonably priced apartments for single New Yorkers who do not want
to double — or triple — up with roommates?_

This is actually not that hard: the solution is to reduce or eliminate height
restrictions and build more subways. That's it. I wrote more about the issue
here: [http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-
futu...](http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-future-in-
seattle-do-millennials-have-a-future-in-any-superstar-cities/) and do see the
links within it.

The failure to understand basic economics is amazing.

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ghaff
You mean like the $4.5 billion 2nd Avenue subway that is nearing completion
after being discussed for something like a hundred years.

And, while one can always build more and build higher, Manhattan isn't exactly
a study in low-rise construction (although much of the city is low/mid-rise).
And if you stay in NYC hotel rooms where you're looking out at some narrow
shaft between buildings, it's not hard to understand why there are some limits
on just building skyscrapers willy nilly.

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rco8786
"nearing completion" is an enormous stretch, if not just plain wrong. The very
first phase is still under construction and only consists of 2 miles of a
planned 8.5 total.

~~~
ghaff
I had seen some headlines about 2016 completion. Didn't realize it was only
the first phase.

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bsg75
Interesting that the pop-up ad that appeared for me was for a leasing of
apartments in the US $1.275 million range.

Home hunting in Manhattan must be a challenge.

~~~
bradleyjg
The thing about NYC that may not be quite familiar to people from other US
cities is that mass transit is pretty good. It may be the case in SF that if
you want to work in SoMa your choices are living in SF proper or spending at
least an hour to get to work with a large standard deviation, but in NYC you
can live in Astoria (Queens) work in Midtown (Manhattan) and have a twenty-
five minute pretty reliable commute.

So choosing to live in Manhattan is a luxury rather than a necessity for most
people. That's one reason why I think keeping affordable apartments in
Manhattan isn't the right thing to be optimizing for (though it may well be
part of a larger picture).

~~~
mahyarm
If you live close to a BART station, you can have the same 25-30m reliable
commute like you would in new york.

Source: personal experience.

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amelius
See also: [http://crasstalk.com/2012/07/nyc-to-residents-live-in-a-
matc...](http://crasstalk.com/2012/07/nyc-to-residents-live-in-a-matchbox-you-
small-thimble-person/)

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nsxwolf
Smaller than my basement home office. I do not regret living in Chicago's
suburbs.

