Mayor Bloomberg Proposes 300 Foot Micro Apartments For Single New Yorkers

Under the current New York City zoning laws, all apartments must be at least 400 square feet. However, Mayor Bloomberg is now proposing that micro apartments measuring at about 300 square feet be built for singles.

Mayor Bloomberg launched a contest Monday to stir development of teeny-tiny apartments — called micro units — for young singles willing to cram themselves into shoebox-sized digs.
The new closetlike flats will be just 275 to 300 square feet — larger than a jail cell but smaller than a mobile home — and will have special permission to ignore city rules requiring newly built apartments to exceed 400 square feet.

“The city’s demographics have changed,” Bloomberg said. “It used to be the average household was a family, a couple of adults and some children.”
That meant that the city was filled with larger dwellings, leaving just 1 million studios and one bedrooms — not nearly enough for the 1.8 million one-and two-person households.
At a news conference Monday, the mayor announced a contest seeking a developer for about 80 micro units at a city-owned parking lot on E. 27th St. in Kips Bay.
The ministudios will be just big enough for a bathroom, kitchen and sleeping and dining areas — but Bloomberg said tenants shouldn’t plan on doing much entertaining.

When I first read this, I wondered to myself if the rents for these units would at least be lower than those of regular studios. It would only be logical since you’re getting so much less space, right?

WRONG!!!!

This is Manhattan after all, where your location and zip code are pretty much all that matters when it comes to real estate.

These micro apartments will rent for $2,000 a month!

The craziest thing about these 300-square-foot apartments (which are about the size of half a subway car) is that they will cost around $2,000 a month to rent.

What’s even crazier is that some New Yorkers are already paying money to live in even smaller spaces. I wrote about one such woman a while back, who lives in a 90 square foot studio on the Upper West Side.

In more recent news, you have this young married couple, who live in a 240 square foot studio in chi chi Brooklyn Heights. For this tiny space, they pay $1,500 a month. This one commenter really nails it:

The communist indoctrination continues…

You don’t need, and shouldn’t want, the luxury of enjoying the fruits of your labor. You should be content with the novelty and sacrifice of not even being able to stand up in your bedroom. And believing that this self imposed punishment serves some greater good. Turning off all human impulse, fulfillment and your instinctive desire to have space to roam, makes you better than everyone else. Just ask these people who seem so self righteous about their choice to live in a prison cell at a premium price. I didn’t even need to be told that they were East Coast Public School products, but it confirmed a lot for me.

I also think it’s about the image. For some people, it looks better to say you live in Brooklyn Heights or the Upper West Side, rather than Rego Park in Queens. It’s also why some people spend their weekends sleeping in garages in the Hamptons, just to say they’re part of that Summer share scene.

As a final example, get a load of this very stupid woman who had her heart set on buying an apartment on 118th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. For all you non-New Yorkers, that would be central Harlem, pretty much the yuckiest neighborhood in Manhattan.