Posted on 04/25/2013 5:26:37 AM PDT by Cronos
Judy Green was well-suited to move into a 10-by-10-foot University District apartment.
..The units are tiny, typically 150 to 250 square feet, about the size of a hotel room. Six or eight residents share a kitchen. And the rent is lower than the average studio or one-bedroom apartment, about $600 to $900 a month compared with $1,200 and up.
Although it’s popular with young urban singles and students, microhousing, also known by the brand name aPodments, is stirring controversy as well.
Some contain as many as 64 units, but because they’re in dense neighborhoods served by transit, they aren’t required to provide any parking.
...“People want to live in walkable neighborhoods with easy access to shops and transit,” said Jim Potter, chairman of Kauri Investments, which has partnered with other developers to build six microhousing projects in Seattle, with several more planned. He’s been asked to develop projects in Portland, California and New Jersey.
Judy Green, 67, said her brand-new aPodment in the University District offered more light and more stylish finishes than the one-bedroom apartments she looked at in her price range.
She pays $850 a month for a sixth-floor room that features a sleeping loft, a private toilet and shower, a kitchenette with a sink, fridge and granite countertop, a skylight, two windows and a sliding-glass door to a small private deck. The loft brings the total square footage to 200.
The kitchen she shares with seven other tenants is on the second floor. She said she keeps fit walking up and down stairs — there’s no elevator in the building.
But she’s right across the hall from the shared rooftop deck with a view of Lake Union and the Space Needle.
“I’m a minimalist,” she said. “I think this is a wonderful thing.”
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
“I've made some really poor life choices, but I voted for Obama twice!”
800 bucks a month to live in a phone booth? I’d rather live somewhere where rent is more reasonable. Not going to waste any more of my time reading the article - but I’ll bet this fool is a green whacko and Ohomo voter.
Spot on!!!
$850.00 for that thing? What a rip off. LOL
As far as I am concerned, if people want to live there, it is up to them. Not my cup of tea, but it suits them, great.
A lot of people in the history of this country would look at that little room as luxurious, since they lived in one room tenements with rusty metal bedframes and a hot plate.
But if they start griping about not having parking, all bets are off. Caveat Emptor.
What we have here is a bunch of Community Organizers who would want to raise YOUR taxes so that Judy Green can live in far more plush surroundings. Judy seems fine with her current arrangement. The people who live in these little places (as far as I can see) are not complaining. But the do-gooders want to make it illegal to have that sort of lifestyle. It's not good enough, you see. Poor people deserve more, you see. And you'll be paying for it, if the do-gooders get their way.
There are 3 basic options:
1) Homeless and living in an alley
2) Minimalist living in very small and very cheap apartments, as supported by the marketplace
3) Nice apartments, paid for out of pocket by hard-working people, and subsidized by the government for those people who have made poor life choices.
Actually, she voted for Obama six or eight times.
$850/mo. here in Wichita will buy you a pretty nice home
there’s no elevator in the building
“People want to live in walkable neighborhoods with easy access to shops and transit,”
Hauling her one chair to the sixth floor must have been fun.
What about A D A requirements? Or the 10 Kg bag of Basmati rice? Or the day she has a major medical issue?
I remember hearing a radio talk show host talking about these “micro” homes a year or so back. He stated that the majority of people moving into these are single, no kids and few friends. Then he said, “Yeah, but even if they’re single, have no kids and few friends, is 250 square feet gonna be enough space for all their Harry Potter collectibles?”
I laughed so hard I almost drove off the road.
These things are fine as inexpensive student dorms, or as a place to sleep a few times a week rather than commute to your real home outside the city every day.
You can get a 3 bedroom house here in MS for that a month.
I have such a building, only a bit bigger. I call it, "my shed".
Good for storing garden tools and such.
Does she keep her Soylent Green in that white cabinet?
I’m quite familiar with this type of housing in Europe... although 250 sq feet is usually what students can afford. For this older woman, location is what’s most important... and living in small spaces means you can’t waste your money buying a bunch of crap. To each his own...
Suddenly the Genesis song “Get ‘Em Out By Friday” comes to mind.
I was all set to slam the “activists” who are against these as prohibiting personal choice but after reading the article (something I don’t always do when I comment . . .), they have a point. These micro-apartments are significantly increasing population density in certain neighborhoods and the city isn’t necessarily planning for that.
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