There is a trend in dense urban areas toward buildings with smaller apartments, commonly called microunits. Many cities, mostly on the West Coast, have explored ways to reduce apartment sizes, and New York has started to follow suit.

But there has been some pushback. For instance, one of the changes the New York City Council negotiated on one aspect of the de Blasio administration’s housing proposal was to increase the minimum allowable size for senior housing apartments from 275 to 325 square feet.

There are advantages and drawbacks to microunits.

Pros:

• You can build more units overall: This is the basic rationale behind allowing microunits: Because you can fit more apartments into the same building, you can build more housing for more people overall. This additional supply helps bend the curve on our region’s housing crisis.
• It fits the changing demographics of the region: The population of single-person households in the region and the country is large and growing, especially in denser areas most likely to build large apartment buildings.
• They can have great design: Because the actual space is so small, they often employ features to make them feel larger. In New York, microunits got their very own museum exhibition to showcase their design.

Cons:

• Less space doesn’t necessarily mean less cost: With a smaller apartment should come a smaller price tag. But by and large, microunits aren’t appreciably cheaper than larger studios, and on a per-square-foot basis are almost always more expensive than other apartments, partly because every apartment still requires a bathroom and kitchen.
• There is a limit to how small you can go: Even is well-designed apartments, people need a minimum amount of space to live healthy and comfortably. And there are concerns that microunits can cross that line.
• Other options might be better: Our demographics are changing in many different ways, not just in the rise of single-family households. People are increasingly living in non-traditional household arrangements, while our housing stock isn’t keeping pace. New building designs and legal changes need to be explored, so we can accommodate all of the changing demographics and ways people are living in the region.

Image: NYCmayorsoffice