Are 'micro-apartments' converted from offices the answer to the housing crisis?
Are 'micro-apartments' converted from offices the answer to the housing crisis?
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Lots of housing is the solution to the housing crisis.
Outlaw AirBnB and corporate ownership of residences or the amount of housing will literally never matter.
Also ban housing as an investment vehicle.
Almost there... It's really about ending capitalism.
AirBNB/short term rental is likely already illegal in most cities. But no one wants to take it on (canβt piss off the lobbyists I suppose). If youβre renting out a property for a few days or a couple of weeks and you donβt live on site, thatβs a hotel, not a BNB. And hotels are already zoned and taxed and regulated β they canβt be in a residential neighborhood for example. Youβd think hotel chains wouldnβt want this illegal competition and would sue.
While true, in the USA, there are millions of "investment homes" owned by investment firms, all sitting empty, driving down supply and driving up costs. The solution to the housing market in this instance isn't to increase the availability of 150sqft slum lord flats, but instead to significantly decrease the number of "investment homes" an entity is allowed to own [and to restrict its use (for example, it must not sit empty for more than 6 months)].
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There are enough houses.
There are too many landlords.
For every rental, there is at least one landlord. In and of itself, this isn't a bad thing. Some people don't want to own homes, and would rather rent. There should be that option. Option. Not the only possibility. There are not enough ownable homes, because too many are owned by investment firms that keep them deliberately empty to drive up prices. Real estate investing should be heavily regulated, and, yes, this includes over landlords.
Why do they have to be micro though?
To fit more units, and make more money.
So they can make as much money as possible
I think this deserves a closer look. This isn't just affordable housing, but affordable housing in the middle of Downtown areas loaded with walking distance services, jobs, and public transportation. Moving working class people into urban areas is a good thing that can have a reverse-gentrification knock-on effect as the extra housing inventory pressures landlords to cut rents.
It's student accomodation - short term , probably ok for youths for whom sharing with strangers as part of the "experience".
That's no place for putting down roots, or for a full time worker. It's not a bad idea in principle - i agree. But each unit should be 2-3 times the size and include a private shower room, toilet. and at least a small kitchenette. And the conversion should be nominally permanent - i.e. require a plaanning application to reverse.
That plan doesnt even have a washbasin/water supply. My guess is they want to cheap out on plumbing - hence the communal bathroom and kitchen. So that it is reversible back to office space - they're not building a home if they want it reversible - it's temporary "accomodation". No good for a lasting comunity. I'd want this type of accomodation to be no more than a few percent of the homes in an area.
To me the fact they scaled down the plan of the "traditional studio" to make their plan look bigger betrays the fact that these are disingenuous salespeople not actually interested in making viable homes for people.
edit: It's also fine for housing the homeless - no argument there, but I'd hope for them a pathway to adequate long term accomodation.
Due to the way office buildings are configured, they'd need to be converted to some sort of communal living (think college dorms). It seems feasible in theory, but it would have a very limited audience and would be a difficult living situation for most people.
Converting to individual units would require extensive retrofits and renovations.
I mean yeah, if people want to live in that condition to be in cities and save money, itβs fine. But not at $850/mo. Thatβs insane to expect that much to live in a closet with no personal bathroom. For $200-300 a month, maybe.
The solution is to end corporate ownership of single family homes and flood the market with the vacant homes theyβre sitting on. Which will drive down home values, which will drive down rent values.
This βsolutionβ is just trying to get the working class to be happy peasants because βhey, at least you have a room to yourselfβ. Get the fuck out of here with that.
I agree completely with your comment. Including the rage at the end lol
Exactly. Are they the solution? Yeah but not at 1k + Utilities and BJ a month.
$850 a month for 150 square feet???? Utter insanity aside, how is that even remotely considered 'deeply affordable'
Because these idiots are comparing it to the normal sized flats, that are more expensive due to the deficit they created.
No: converting commercial space to residential is more expensive than building new residential
Not to mention the like 12 empty houses per homeless person.
This bullshit is just some vulture capitalist's foolproof scam to make a quick buck in a floundering corporate real estate market.
No: converting commercial space to residential is more expensive than building new residential
Everything I'm seeing says the answer just isn't as simple as you're stating here in your post.
The more accurate answer is in the middle. Not all office buildings are created equal, and not all cities have excess land meaning there higher conversion costs are still worth it over building new residential. According to one study of 1000 office buildings evaluated in cities across the USA and Canada, 25% were good candidates for cost effective conversion to residential. Keep in mind this can include both small office buildings as large ones. source
"Now, developers in the city have five office conversion projects underway and 10 more in development, Paynter noted in his blog. He said he expects these initiatives to increase the number of residential units there by 24%. "
"The success in Calgary has prompted over a dozen cities and more than 100 building owners across North America to seek similar solutions for their struggling Class C and B buildings, Paynter said in the blog post. Projects including Franklin Tower in Philadelphia; 1 St. Clair West in Toronto, Ontario; and The Residences at Rivermark Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, show how outdated office buildings can be reconfigured into amenity-rich residential communities, adding value to the cityscape, Paynter wrote."
In some cities even if the cost of conversion may be higher than building new residential, it may still be worth it to do conversion instead of new build simply because there isn't land free in the right places. source I postulate in these cases, building new residential would also have to include the cost of demolishing the existing office building to reclaim the land which suddenly would make conversion cheaper again.
"Manhattan not only sees the most conversions at present, but it also has the most office space meeting our criteria for future conversion potential, and so we expect it to remain the leading market for OTM conversions."
From all sources I found the best office buildings to convert are actually older and smaller ones that are decades old, not new ones. Not only are the older office buildings easier/cheaper to convert these are also less attractive to businesses which prefer newer building designs and flexibility. This is one of those narrow cases where its beneficial to both groups. There are no losers in these specific cases.
Like may things in life, there isn't one simple answer, and that appears to be the case here.
Which is why developers do it. To lose money.
Not sure how itβs dystopic to convert unused office space into housing. Sounds useful to me.
Iβve read that itβs difficult to do though because the buildings usually donβt have the right plumbing for it. I do wonder if they could replumb using raised flooring.
Iβd also like to see some of this wasted office space converted into indoor farming.
There are wide swaths of dt Manhattan that are completely empty rn. Floors and floors of high rises. A lot of them are on 10 year leases so they're just being paid still while no one uses them but when they all go up it's gonna be interesting.
The current corrupt mayor refused to rezone them for residential and did a big RTO campaign that fell flat. They'll keep them empty even after rents end or try to figure out ways to rent whole floors to the mega rich. They'll never convert them to normal housing as it will lower the value of their skyscrapers. Instead they'll continue to lobby for RTO politicians to ensure businesses force back people to work in them.
Without regulation, it'll make it worse. (31 minute YouTube video by Evan Edinger)
Fuck man, even the tiniest possible cruise cabins still have room for a stand up shower, toilet, and sink. And they fit a queen sized bed.
Knock down a wall or two and don't make people share a communal bathroom like they're recruits in basic training.
This idea in particular seems inconvenient to me, but there may be people who would prefer something like this.
I had a very small apartment when I lived in Japan, and honestly, I really liked it for the most part. It was a bit bigger than what I think they're saying in this article, though.
While I'm not fully on board with this idea, I do think it could help some people out. When I got my first job out of college, I definitely couldn't afford to live anywhere aside from my parents house. All my friends were in the same boat and even with our meager salaries together, we could not afford to get an apparent together. It took us 3-4 years out of college to have the salary to be able to come together and get an apartment. But what if you moved to a new place and don't have friends to share with? What if you just... Don't have friends or have some reason you can't live with others? This is a great solution for that. My brother was in a situation recently where he felt stuck in a relationship with his batshit crazy girlfriend because he couldn't afford to be on his own and would have to move in with our parents if they broke up. It eventually worked out and he has an apartment all his own, but I feel he could have removed himself from that relationship sooner if there was a cheap option like this for him to use temporarily.
A lot of American municipalities have banned a lot of the cheap and small apartments that could house working people. Offer it as an option; it seems better than sleeping on the streets.
A: no.
The issue isn't lack of existing housing.
No. It's not a lack of existing housing. It's lack of available housing. Millions of homes sitting empty, owned by these firms as investment properties.
It's the diamond in warehouse treatment.
yes private real estate bad but also guys this is infill housing, this is good.
EDIT: wait no hold on just saw how small those are that's awful
Ehh that studio on the right is perfectly livable for two adults. Common to see in Europe.
The left looks like some cursed dorm-type setup with shared restrooms and kitchens which is just unsanitary (have you met an average American?).
But the size is fine. Americans just insist on having ridiculous amounts of square footage to βliveβ because they donβt live. The US has no third spaces so either you go somewhere and pay for the privilege of being there, or you use your apartment as your all-in-one space for gatherings, exercise, relaxing, creating, etc.
The U.S. has a lot of third spaces like parks, libraries, art spaces, community/rec/senior centers, churches, etc. It's more that there's been a cultural shift away from using those spaces, because the norm for work-life balance has been steadily shifting toward only work, so people don't have energy left for themselves or their communities.
My work abandoned their offices during covid. The building is being converted into luxury apartments. Capitalism is fundamentally based on the deprivation, not the satisfaction, of human needs like food, housing, healthcare, etc.
Probably because you can't convert offices into affordable housing. The cost is staggering.
"cost" or "price"? If a high price isn't clearing a market . . . something uncompetetive is probably happening.
The fact that they're micro apartments is telling.
Converting older office buildings - say, 1950's and earlier - is often feasible, it's the newer ones that can be problematic. Most people don't want an apartment without a window (and often fire or occupancy codes require a window). This isn't really an issue for older building stock, as they were constructed when air conditioning wasn't as prevalent, windows provided ventilation, and window light was used to supplement office lights.
Modern office buildings don't worry about windows for either ventilation or light, so each floor can take up a massive amount of space. If this happens to be a long, thin space, you could put in some apartments - but a lot of the buildings are more square.
How do you handle that? Do you make each apartment really long and thin? If so, do you put in a hallway on one side that eats up precious space and does nothing other than keeping you from going through each room in turn? Or do you make it so you have to pass through each room to get to the end?
If you have the pass-through-each-room style, then which room should be the end room? Traditionally the living room gets the big windows, so you can entertain guests, but that leaves you passing through bedrooms to get there. If you put a bedroom at the end, then only one person/couple gets the light, and you're still potentially walking through the second or third bedroom.
You could make the apartments more square - but these are massive floors, sometimes taking up entire city blocks. And as I mentioned, often code requires windows, so what do you do with the massive space in the center? Do you make each apartment wide and long - those will be expensive and won't help the affordability crisis. Do you build in common areas: say, put in resident storage units every 3 floors and a gym every 5 floors and toss in some community spaces? That's great, but those common spaces will need housekeeping and maintenance, which raises ongoing costs. You can put in office space, but most people don't feel comfortable having those on the same floor, and it raises security concerns for the residents. There are a couple places that have put in a giant light well in the center, but that's expensive and makes the resulting apartments expensive too.
Conversion tends to work better with older building stock and while that works fine in some places, what do you do in cities that don't really have a good supply of older buildings? The supply of 1950's era office buildings is certainly limited in places like Los Angeles or Phoenix.
I guess you shit and piss out of the window? Oh wait, office building windows don't open. Oh well, communal shitter and kitchen in the same spot it is.
Seems excessive. Loads of people have spent many many years in as little as 18 Sq. Ft. Why can't people just be happy with that?
/s
not the answer, but an answer, in a very long list of possible solutions
I'm not negating the benefits here. But this answer is to a problem created by the very people providing the answer, except it only truly benefits the causes. Millions of empty homes, owned as investment properties by these firms. They're causing the housing market deficit, and are now providing a "generous" 150sqft closet for $850us per month.
It's that scaling distotion on the two side-by-side plans that does it for me.
These shoeboxes come with some magical feng-shui thing that makes 20ft appear to be the same as 30ft.
once again, trying to shift the onus for a solution away from the 1% who caused and perpetuate the problem
Exactly. Not sure how slum lord flats are the solution here, when investment firms are sitting on millions of empty homes.
they're a solution for building owners who can't find tenants to lease their office space to. they don't actually care about the peasants who can't find affordable homes
Who do you think owns those fucking buildings with office space?