2016
"Stackable apartments offer a tiny solution to homelessness"
Homelessness is as big an issue in San Francisco as any other major city, but local firm Panoramic Interests has designed a self-contained stackable tiny apartment that it promotes as a viable solution. MicroPAD modular dwellings comprise a total floorspace of just 160 sq ft (14 sq m), but include a kitchenette, sleeping area, and bathroom.
...More"The MicroPAD: Innovative Housing for the Homeless"
To address the growing problem of homelessness in our cities, Panoramic Interests has developed the MicroPAD (Prefab Affordable Dwelling). The MicroPAD is designed to be installed quickly and economically on large and small sites, in a wide variety of building configurations.
The MicroPAD modules are built in a factory and then stacked like blocks to create multi-story, multi-unit buildings that are indistinguishable from conventional construction. Buildings constructed from MicroPAD modules meet all seismic and safety codes.
...More"San Francisco Man Wants To End Homelessness With Functional MicroPAD Units"
These 160-foot apartments could be the solution to housing San Francisco’s homeless population of 7,000.
San Francisco might be a city of class, culture, and progression but its homeless population is through the roof. At any given moment, there are approximately 7,000 individuals living on the city’s streets, according to statistics gathered by volunteers in 2015.
...More"San Francisco man wants to end homelessness with tiny MicroPAD mini homes"
In San Francisco, approximately 7,000 people live on the street without a permanent home, and one man believes he has a solution. Patrick Kennedy and his team at Panoramic Interests developed MicroPAD, a tiny, prefabricated housing unit that can be used alone or stacked into 200-unit complexes to provide efficient shelter for those who currently have none.
...More"Can These Micro-Apartments Help End San Francisco’s Homelessness Crisis?"
Micro Pad is a high-design, prefab 160-square-foot apartment. The company behind it hopes to put a building of them together so the city can help give shelter to some of its more than 7,000 homeless.
If you lie on a bed inside one of these new micro-apartments, your head is next to the kitchen counter, and if you sit up, you can reach out and touch the desk on the other side of the room. The entire apartment, at 8 feet by 20 feet, could squeeze into a long parking space.
...More"Sacramento City Councilman Proposes Portable Solution For Homeless Crisis"
"The Tent Cities of San Francisco"
SAN FRANCISCO — California may be the new capital of American liberalism, but everybody who likes the sound of that ought to consider the fate of three recent San Francisco ballot initiatives.
The first, Proposition Q, aimed to eliminate homeless people’s unsightly tent camps by banning sidewalk tents and empowering the police to confiscate them with 24 hours notice so long as occupants were offered beds in shelters.
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"SoMa developer dodges local laws, upzones new building automatically"
San Francisco jealously guards its right to upzone new projects. But the catch is, in the majority of cases it’s not technically up to us.
Under a ruling in a 2013 court case with Napa County, developers in any California city automatically qualify for a 35 percent bonus in their number of units, provided that at least 11 percent of homes in the building are priced as affordable housing.
...More"The State Density Bonus Has Arrived in San Francisco"
On Thursday December 8th, the San Francisco Planning Commission approved the first market-rate housing project to apply the state density bonus law. The vote was 5-1. Commissioner Melgar was the dissenting vote and Commissioner Moore was absent. This marks a tremendous win for housing advocates who have pushed for this law’s implementation over many years.
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