Some down sides to micro-residences

Most people have applauded planned changes underway in residential housing standards across the country's major urban areas, including Fairfax County, to allow very small apartments to be built.   How small depends on the location, but generally these "residential studio units" (RSUs) as they are called in draft Fairfax County legislation run from 300-500 square feet, and smaller in places like New York City (275-350 SF). 

Now some experts are pointing out these small dwellings may create significant health risks. Here is an excerpt from at Atlantic Cities article on the matter:

. . . as New York City’s “micro-apartment” project inches closer to reality, experts warn that micro-living may not be the urban panacea we’ve been waiting for. For some residents, the potential health risks and crowding challenges might outweigh the benefits of affordable housing. And while the Bloomberg administration hails the tiny spaces as a “milestone for new housing models,” critics question whether relaxing zoning rules and experimenting with micro-design on public land will effectively address New York’s apartment supply problem in the long run.

“Sure, these micro-apartments may be fantastic for young professionals in their 20's,” says Dak Kopec, director of design for human health at Boston Architectural College and author of Environmental Psychology for Design. “But they definitely can be unhealthy for older people , say in their 30’s and 40’s, who face different stress factors that can make tight living conditions a problem.”

Home is supposed to be a safe haven, and a resident with a demanding job may feel trapped in a claustrophobic apartment at night—forced to choose between the physical crowding of furniture and belongings in his unit, and social crowding, caused by other residents, in the building’s common spaces. Research, Kopec says, has shown that crowding-related stress can increase rates of domestic violence and substance abuse.

The article goes on to give a reasonably balanced view of the pros and cons of micro-apartments from a variety of perspectives.

Click here to read the full Atlantic Cities article.  

Some Pros & Cons of "micro-apartments" in New York--& maybe Fairfax County

This article discusses--critically--New York City's initiative to re-zone to allow "micro-apartments", apartments typically of a 400-600 SF size.  A similar initiative is underway in Fairfax County where the Board of Supervisors is looking at a proposal to allow 250-500 SF apartments called "residential studios."  The Fairfax County Federation of Citizens Associations has taken a critical look at the proposal and suggested that it needs to be re-worked, especially to protect existing neighborhoods.  The County initiative is especially important from a Reston perspective given the near-certain large-scale development of residential units in Reston's Metro station areas under a new Master Plan. 

In contrast to the small size of these micro-apartments, the Reston Task Force and County continue to assume that the overall average gross square footage (GSF) for urban dwelling units will be 1,200 GSF.  Like the similar County/Task Force estimate of office space per worker--300 GSF vs. an ongoing decline to about 150 GSF--the result could be about twice as much development--residents and workers--as the currently proposed Plan anticipates. 

Here are some excerpts from the Remapping Debate article:

Micro-apartments: more trouble than they’re worth?

Original Reporting | ByDavid Noriega | Housing, NYC, Quality of life

Nov. 20, 2013 — How much of an impact could the construction of “micro-apartments” have on New York City’s housing shortage, and how serious are the dangers associated with proceeding down the micro-apartment road? Our reporting suggests that the benefits are likely to be limited and the perils significant. Central to the dispute between proponents and skeptics are differing premises about the historical development of the housing shortage, the appropriate role of zoning, and the path that a less regulated market would take. . .

. . .  At the heart of the project was a deep belief in the efficacy of market-based solutions. “These new units will allow us to create more affordable housing without any rent subsidy,” Bloomberg said at the press conference announcing the competition. “We are simply letting the market work.” . .

One reason that the relaxation of zoning standards raises alarm bells in some quarters is that very small apartments, densely packed together, come with potential risks to the health and well-being of the residents. “I wouldn’t say that it’s unhealthy for everyone,” said Dak Kopec, director of design for human health at Boston Architectural College. “But it is definitely unhealthy for some people.” . .

 The effects of crowding can include irritability, distraction, a reduction in problem-solving skills, and the like. In more severe cases, crowding, acting as an amplifier of stress, can trigger destructive behavior, whether it is focused inward or outward: Kopec cited research linking crowding-related stress to domestic violence, as well as to excessive drinking and other forms of self-medicating behavior. . .

 In the Bloomberg Administration’s telling of the story, a varied and extensive population of New Yorkers would benefit from relaxed zoning and the construction it spurs. “Ultimately, the housing choices that [our program] seeks to create will serve a wide spectrum of small households and small family sizes,” then-Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development Mathew M. Wambua said during the press conference announcing the competition. “Young professions, singles, couples, small families, artists, veterans, low- and moderate-income families, special needs populations — the list goes on and on.”

 Others are more skeptical. “Single-person households are by far the poorest households in New York City,” Moses Gates of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), an affordable housing research and advocacy group, told Remapping Debate. One of the main drivers behind the growing number of singles in New York, Gates said, is the fact that the city is aging — and elderly singles tend to have extremely low incomes. “If you’re trying to house the growing single population of New York,” Gates said, “you also have to reflect who that growing single population is, which is poor and elderly.”

One group that seems clearly not to benefit from a push for micro-apartments is families with children. . .

A key to understanding the difference between those optimistic and those pessimistic about the potential of micro-apartments is that the former tend to believe that the market, left more to its own devices, would serve the interests of a wide range of New Yorkers. . . 

 But micro-apartment skeptics say that increased sharing stemmed less from an overall lack of small apartments than from their rising cost: the small apartments that an already increasingly unregulated market did create demanded rents well beyond what most New Yorkers could afford. Increased sharing “has everything to do with the affordability of the housing stock, not the size and shape of it,” Byron said. . .

More generally, critics of the Bloomberg Administration’s housing policies contend that a market-oriented approach chooses to ignore what profit-driven markets actually do. “If you don’t have any government subsidy or any government leverage,” ANHD’s Gates said, “the private market, no matter what neighborhood, does not build for anybody except the top of the market.” When developers have their druthers, Gates said, they do not build low- or middle-income housing. “Developers build to make the most profit.

Click here to read the full article.