I think this is a great idea, Americans generally are too focussed on absolute size without any attention to thoughtful design and layout (has anyone seen the horrible cabinet and appliances available at Home Depot? Ikea is much more sensible in design, even if quality is sometimes questionable). I am often disgusted by these "cribs" shows that elevate 5000sf McMansions that are cheaply built, awkwardly laid out and uncomfortable to live in and yet are somehow admired because they are "big". I live in a 370sf studio (70sf of which is an absurdly laid-out bathroom) that, through painstaking self-renovation I have made extremely comfortable and convenient. Big apartments are wasteful and thoughtless. The Bloomberg proposal is meant to create more comfortable, affordable housing in the city and elevates the ideal of design to parity with the ideal of raw space. Hurrah for under-counter refrigerators, thoughtful design and layout, and a Manhattan population that does not consist exclusively of Wall Street bankers.

Yes You can Have an Own a Great Micro Apt in NYC Manhattan for $299,999
see:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/reo/3215894968.html

I once lived in a studio apartment on east 4th street in manhattan that was 11 sq feet, really! I have a very minimal life style and so this worked fine.
I'd consider a studio apartment again BUT wish it were a lot cheaper, I see studio apartments listed at over $1200. too much money!!!!!!

I actually think this is a great ideas EXCEPT for the lack of closets. That's crazy. Everyone knows that closets are especially important in small spaces.

Currently I'm living alone in a studio apartment in the West Village that's under 400 sq ft. This has required editing my possessions. I bought a kindle. I carefully arranged the furniture to maximize the feeling of space. And it's really not so bad. The trade off is I live in New York, and in this great neighborhood.

I recommend you visit IKEA in Red Hook to see the small, efficiently designed apartments the company has put together.

I live in a 325 s.f apt on the Upper East Side. As a single person, I have plenty of room, and it's affordable. But it's only for me - it is a tenement building built in 1908, with a lot of the "original" features: one window per room, half-size bathtub in the kitchen, one 2x2 closet, toilet in its own room with a door but it's the size of a closet, one sink for the entire place. Pull out couch touches the other wall when extended. My bed is wall-to-wall. I live on the third floor of a six-story walkup. I actually have two bedrooms (7x12), a small foyer, and a third room that is combo eat-in kitchen/bathroom. I have given away most of my furniture from my former 800 s.f. apt, but I find the lighter load very freeing. I have lived here since 2006, and my brother lived here for the previous 9 years before me. With a roommate. 300 s.f. is livable, I don't know why people are complaining. Put all your books on a Kindle, and all your music on an iPod, hang your flat screen on the wall, and you're good to go. Do not own more than 2 week's worth of clothes; you don't need them anyway. The one downside is that you really can't entertain, you need to go out. If you buy an armoire, are innovative with shelving and use every square inch sparingly, you can do it. The Container Store really gets it, and can do wonders to help maximize small spaces.

Why are we paying any attn or giving any air to Mike? I am so sick of his crazy Napoleonic head trip. Enough is enough.

I think the reaction to this is similar to the reaction to Bloomberg's proposal to limit the size of sugary sodas that could be SOLD (not consumed). People are reacting as though someone is putting a gun to their head and forcing them to live there. This proposal is simply a reaction to MARKET forces. One can complain all they want but these will go like hotcakes because there will be demand for it and if Bloomberg is wrong, the market will dictate what will be built. Nobody is obligated to provide spacious apartments to anybody and that goes for rent control also.

Shame ... all the basics of life are being made more and more expensive, by greedy, misanthropist elite. There was a time when rent was not as much an issue ... now housing is a commodity that keeps on squeezing up to 70% of some peoples salaries - excessive as are medical care, child care, and as manipulative as the fashion of drinking bottled water, instead of tap. People should have the dignity of a ample place "to come home to", as people did, not long ago. We are not Japan! Most of us only live in 30% of the Continental USA. There are solutions, economists and urban planners have many in record over the past 40 years; some claim that Capitalism should not be touched, that all will fall into place for the betterment of Society ... well, it is not happening, it is becoming more trying to "live well". Matchbox sized apartments are not the solution, negotiating from a place of strength with landlords and holding companies will yield a more dignified outcome - Any one with enough will and strength to tackle this issue?

This is an awful idea. This is good for billionaire real estate moguls.
The idea is to purposely make small apartments EVEN SMALLER.
These are going to go for $1000-$2000/ month, because that is what the market will bear, thereby jacking up the price of studio apartments to what??? $6000-$8000 / month.

NYC is SO OVER RATED.
The populace needs to come to its senses, not just keep stacking on top if each other. This entire city smells like piss.

Michael Bloomberg is a sadist whose hatred and disdain for low income people, even middle class people, is obvious to everyone. No closets...what a hateful idea. The sooner this patrician thug, who illegally bullied his way through the term limit law because he's a special snowflake, is gone, the better for all of us, as he has done untold and irreversible damage to New York City.

Our elitist mayor pipes up again, essentially saying, 'let them eat cake'.
How about HE lives in one of his esteemed boxes?

god Bloomberg is horrible. Counting the days til he leaves.

"This would require the involvement of our legislature."
A funny way to refer to the embezzlers club currently headed by self-admitted public funds fraudster Christine Quinn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOqecrHyzko

These "micro-apartments" have existed for years in many of the older, tony apartment hose complexes - I expect that the city council members will be correcting the public's authorized compensation for their tireless efforts at self-enrichment, and that many of these already existing "substandard" units will find their way "out-of-the-shadows"

My first apartment in Manhattan, just out of college, was under 200 sq. ft., including bathroom and hallway. The room was 11 ft X 11 ft., with "kitchen" at one end. I had small appliances and hung my pots on the wall. I had a narrow hallway table that could seat 2 people catticorner and a day bed with drawers and shelves that doubled as a sofa. The tiny closet was too small, so I stored my out of season clothing at my parents' house in NJ. I also used my bathroom for storage. At that stage in my life, I didn't own much stuff. However, I can't imagine not having a closet at all. It was so hard to keep a tiny space under control, I absolutely needed to keep my clothing and other items out of sight and away from the cooking area, just feet away.

The disadvantage is a lack of ventilation, making small apartments hotter in summer. My apartment faced a school courtyard, giving it a lot of light and more fresh air than I would have had otherwise. I also found it extra challenging to keep it free from cockroaches.

$24,000/yr in rent for a studio smaller than all other studios? Add in utilities and other basic living expenses and you would have to make $50k/yr just to survive. This city is a joke.

My first bedroom in Brooklyn was 8x8 with a skylight and no windows. Summers were brutal, but a former teacher of mine suggested sleeping with a wet sheet and a fan. It worked great, until the water evaporated and the sheet was dry and hot by 6am. But if it weren't for the fact that I paid $380 a month, I probably wouldn't have moved to New York.

On another note, I visited Hong Kong last year and witnessed what were really cramped living situations. Now I know why my mom says she'll never move back after living in the US for so long.

Why bother? Just bring back the SRO - which had bigger spaces and also was affordable. I can only imagine how the RE industry will exploit these new "micro" units. I bet they'd try to make more money with a building full of micro units than a building with traditional 1 and 2 bedroom apartments.

Yes, James Kaboui, these seem to be more efficently and perhaps comfortably built SROs. And it's probably what they'll end up as, if the experiment fails.

It seems so unhistoric not to realize we are talking about bringing back the SRO!

As long as there's a window with a decent amount of sun, and high ceilings, a small room can be totally livable. I lived in a one-room space for a while - though it felt plenty big at being 20' wide by 18' long; that included a kitchen and closet, but the bathroom was shared, in the hallway, which I did not mind at all. When I was making more money, I moved into a bigger apartment.

Can you ask your guest if these units are going to be rent controlled? No matter how great these units sound for young people, they need to be well under $1000 a month; more like $500 a month.

diversity is great, not only in size....
i live in a former daylight factory in Williamsburg, that was converted into artist lofts and will be covered under the loft law...
2 questions:

1. why is the minimum size to be covered by the loft law is 580 sq ft?

Every Paris student has lived in a "chambre de bonne", a micro unit under the roofs often with a communal toilet and no only a sink. They are very small, walkups but light and cheap. They were historically built to serve as accommodation for the staff of the wealthy household living in the apartments below.

Where did the in-house help sleep in NYC?

I just heard "Below Market Rate"

Uh oh. That's way too much for me.

A lot of people only make 30K. How about they cost 900 bucks?

unfortunately this rfp is aimed at developers, you must be able to provide full financing to apply. wouldn't count on these as being well designed, as an architect i was very excited at the prospect of this competetion, but doubt few design oriented people have developers and banks in their pockets.

You gotta be pretty tidy. And no closets!?!? I live in a large loft with no closets and I hate that aspect of my home

LIke your caller, I lived in Japan, in a "6-mat" room. (a mat is about 3'x6'). What made it work was
-Air and light.
- Flexibility: Rather than having fixed furniture like chairs and beds, you treat the space as flexible: You roll up your futon in the morning, put it in the closet. For dinner, sit on "zabuton" cushions on the floor, using perhaps a knee-high table to sit at. The short table legs can be folded away and tucked into a corner. So, the space is quite flexible.

Also, a tea ceremony master once impressed upon me, in a group of about 15 sitting in a circle in a 6-mat room, that at peace we were comfortable in a small space, but that even a "50-room mansion" would not be enough space for a couple who were not in harmony, at each others' throats.

So they're going to build storage units for people? Would each unit have private bathroom? Windows? Whatever they are, I hope the building is green.

I think that single mayors should be required to live in 300 square feet and Gracie Mansion should be used only for City functions.

1) How is this really any different -- materially -- to SROs?

2) Will there be an attempt to rent-stabilize these new-aged SRO (ahem, "micro" apt.) so that they actually alleviate the high cost of housing rather than exploit it?

What will be the price of these spaces?
Will they be for rent or for sale?

What will the rent be? What will the rent be?

This is a crucial aspect.

Note that the single Napoleon Bonaparte Bloomberg lives in multiple (I believe 6) HUGE homes. Just another way to pander to his main constituency,developers. next he will shove us into caged beds, a la Hong Kong. This elitist, out of touch moron can't be gone soon enough.

Hold up -- In NYC, it's ILLEGAL for more than 3 unrelated adults to live together?

As an architect, I'm all for the idea of micro units, but don't think they should be designed without closets. In order to make a small space livable, it is necessary to be smart about storage space. Here's hoping developers partner with architects to come up with innovative ways to make micro apartments work. Bloomberg shouldn't be the one deciding whether there is a closet or not!

When my 12 year old nephew visited me in my Chelsea studio, he remarked, "Now I know what a studio apartment is - you have a refrigerator in your bedroom!"

for a single person, if there is a nice VIEW then it doesn't matter how small it is -- i would even sleep sitting.

The smaller the apartment, the more important it is to have closets and built-ins to make it livable.

There was a time, according to black & white movies, when people lived quite happily in single rooms or shared 1-bedroom apartments. Today there are many people (now looking for housing) who have never shared a bedroom or dorm room. This seems a perfect fit for them. www.HereSheIsBoys.co

I lived in a midtown women's hotel residence for over a decade--it was only 7&1/2 by 14 feet, so narrow and long. Had a sink & closet, shared bathrooms at each end of the hall--but with great friends, a huge shared dining room & other rather grand common areas I was happy!

My first NY apartment (many years ago) was 324 sq. ft. (18X18 including pullman kitchen, small but adequate bathroom, good closet, sleeping alcove). I stayed there a bit over 2 years -- lucked into a tiny one bedroom, perhaps twice the size of the studio.
Paris has the itty-bitty apartments, not much larger than a closet, as any watcher of International House Hunters knows. I'm now in a one bedroom (approx. 900 sq. ft., large by NY standards, while friends from out of town think it's terribly small).

For the past four years, we've lived two people in a 500sq ft apartment, which is small but not really a sacrifice. It would feel even larger if it were slightly better designed (for example, the bathroom fixtures are spread out in just such a way that they have a much larger footprint than necessary, but are still too close together to add any additional storage furniture). Having a such a small space forces you to keep your possessions trimmed down.

These 300 ft² apartments would be rented or sold by every New York realtor I know of as 425 ft². Who do they think they are fooling? I have never seen an apartment whose usable space is a much as advertised. France has a law called the "Loi Carrez" that specifies exactly the way interior spaces are to be measured, and it does not permit even counting the threshold of doorways.

Are The Apartments Large Enough For Me And My Big Gulp?

I've always thought that micro apts should be built, as most single New Yorkers would prefer that, as opposed to sharing apts, something which ironically takes 2+ bedroom apts away from families that need them..

There is always a concern that micro apts in clusters, may become tenements, which is why I assume they were "zoned out" by the city in the first place but there is no reason why studios can't be less than 300SF.

I lived in Japan for 6 months, not in Tokyo where I probably would have had an even smaller apartment, and lived in a full apartment that was probably no more than 150 square feet. I had a washing machine, a balcony where I could dry my clothes, a stove, sink, bathroom with shower and bath, multiple closets, a futon, TV, dinner table and chairs, various appliances A/C w/heat, rice cooker, microwave/toaster, and a water heater for tea. I had everything I needed and it worked for me perfectly.

Sorry it was was 8' by 20'...

I've been in many Manhattan apartments that were less than 450 square feet. That number clearly doesn't apply to existing spaces. When did it go into effect?

My first Manhattan apartment was 10 feet wide and 20 feet long total...the size of two jail cells I'm told. It was on the first floor so it had 12 foot ceilings. Always seemed funny that it would have been bigger if you turned it on it's side.

In Philadelphia, where I had lived just before moving to NYC, it would not legally be able to call itself an apartment (must be 220 sqft there).

It was tiny but all mine.

What a boon for developers. Basically the mainstreaming of SRO's.

I only hope they make sure the light does not go out when you close the door.