2012
"Patrick Kennedy to Unveil Micro Apartments in San Francisco"
In a crowded city like San Francisco, size matters. That’s why developer Patrick Kennedy of Panoramic Interests is building bite-size apartments in S.F.’s South of Market district.
Kennedy plans to unveil a 23-unit apartment building at 38 Harriet St. in October.
The units were designed and built in collaboration with Zeta Communities, a San Francisco-based maker of prefabricated buildings. Each 300-square-foot apartment is currently under construction at Zeta’s factory in Sacramento.
The builder will ship the units via trucks to San Francisco, where they will be assembled like building blocks
...More"SoMa Apartments to Cater to Tech Crowd"
Coming soon to San Francisco’s hot South of Market area: A “tech savvy” residential community, containing 463 rental apartments, a shared gourmet kitchen, work space areas, plus restaurants, cafes and perhaps even a hipster barbershop like they have in New York.
“We’re creating a space that mirrors the sensibilities of the community,” said Eric Tao, managing principal of San Francisco’s Avant Housing, developer of the two-building project covering 587,000 square feet at Folsom and Fifth streets.
...More"Letters to the editor, June 17: Diversity Housing"
Your front-page story on “tiny living spaces” was like a ray of hope. The charity-lottery system of providing affordable housing isn’t filling the gap in our housing stock.
We can balance income and housing needs by allowing developers to produce market-rate affordable dwellings. This is a very good way to promote diversity and social stability in the city, and hopefully in our state.
...More"Tiny Apartments in S.F. Worth a Try"
San Francisco’s lopsided housing market – sky-high rents and an invasion of young workers – has experts thinking: Why not drop the minimum size of new apartments to the equivalent of a one-car garage?
It’s an idea worth exploring and encouraging, but the results will hinge on the appeal and convenience of the finished product. Financing, the job market and even housing politics could all play a role in a helping or hurting a promising idea.
...More"Tiny Condos Not for the Small-Minded"
Small is the new big.
When Supervisor Scott Wiener proposed legislation that would allow for new construction of rental units with as little as 150 square feet of living space, there were hoots of derision.
That’s no more than a parking space, critics said.
Well that’s just silly. It is at least two parking spaces.
But the concept isn’t so far-fetched. In 2008, an innovative condo building called Cubix opened on Harrison Street, and although the hoots were just as loud – and it experienced some rocky financial times – it is now fully occupied with tenants who say they are neither dissatiSFied nor claustrophobic.
...More"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.
...More"SF Supes to Vote On Micro-Apartment Proposal"
San Francisco supervisors will consider a plan that would allow developers to create so-called “micro apartments.”
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"Small May Be About To Get Even Smaller"
This afternoon, ever-tinier legal living spaces are up for a vote at the Board of Supervisors meeting. A modification to the building codesponsored by Supervisor Wiener (flying solo) would reduce the legal square footage for new construction rental units to 220 square feet, measured to the inside perimeter of the outer walls, and include a full bath, a closet, and a kitchen with at least 30 inches of counter space. No mention of a dishwasher or in-unit laundry, and presumably you get to live/sleep/eat/work/sex in whatever’s left- which the new code would define as a minimum 150 square feet of the 220– about the size of a parking space.
...More"NYC Announces New Competition to Develop Innovative Apartment Model"
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert K. Steel and Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Mathew M. Wambua today launched the adAPT NYC Competition, a pilot program to develop a new housing model for the City’s growing small-household population. adAPT NYC seeks to create additional choices within New York City’s housing market to accommodate the city’s changing demographics.
Currently New York City has 1.8 million one- and two-person households, but only one million studios and one-bedrooms. The design competition involves a Request for Proposals for a rental building composed primarily, or completely, of micro-units – apartments smaller than what is allowed under current regulations. New York City’s housing codes have not kept up with its changing population, and currently do not allow an entire building of micro-units. Under this pilot program, Mayor Bloomberg will waive certain zoning regulations at a City-owned site at 335 East 27th Street in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan to test the market for this new housing model.
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