The Norfolk Missing Middle project looks interesting- having some pre-approved designs seems like a good way to ease development. Boosting smaller units isn’t exactly the dream, but with smaller household sizes it is more reasonable, and of course cheaper as the article mentions.
The thing about smaller units is they might also be for young people for a few years. The flipside of "we need more houses and family-size units" is where are those people going to live for the 5-10 years before they start families?
If you have enough and they’re cheap enough, maybe they’ll move forward starting families a year or two. Also, a 3- or more bedroom unit can be broken up and rented out by room should the market permit.
The bathrooms and kitchen are often the most expensive part of construction, so a 4 bed/2 bath has a price/sq ft advantage over 1 bed/1 bath.
Interesting re construction costs. One thing I've read is that a dearth of cheap small units causes a lot of folks to do a roommate situation with the family-size units - roommates is fine and all, and not everyone is going to get to live in their own place in their 20s, but that's one reason why building more of those units can actually help free up the bigger ones for single families.
That makes sense. Of corse you also have many who can’t or don’t want to have kids, or are retired, divorced etc.
In the US I believe most apartment buildings have one owner, but even in the outside of the east coast I’ve seen the occasional building that helps finance construction by selling apartments during development. I suspect there is a larger pool of potential buyers for a 300 sq ft cheap-finish apartment than a larger and more luxurious apartment, or single-family house.
If "gentrification" is a crisis in SF, could those gentry please come live in DC. We need the tax revenue.
The Washington Mero has terrible directions. What about painting arrow on the floors and walls? Redundant indications next station AND final destination AND to/away from Metro Center. And although better than before stations are still gloomy. What about more LIGHT! And the public address system acoustics are so bad it only serves to interrupt one's podcast.
But the trains are running with much less delay than a few months ago. Good for someone in Metro administration!
The Norfolk Missing Middle project looks interesting- having some pre-approved designs seems like a good way to ease development. Boosting smaller units isn’t exactly the dream, but with smaller household sizes it is more reasonable, and of course cheaper as the article mentions.
The thing about smaller units is they might also be for young people for a few years. The flipside of "we need more houses and family-size units" is where are those people going to live for the 5-10 years before they start families?
If you have enough and they’re cheap enough, maybe they’ll move forward starting families a year or two. Also, a 3- or more bedroom unit can be broken up and rented out by room should the market permit.
The bathrooms and kitchen are often the most expensive part of construction, so a 4 bed/2 bath has a price/sq ft advantage over 1 bed/1 bath.
Interesting re construction costs. One thing I've read is that a dearth of cheap small units causes a lot of folks to do a roommate situation with the family-size units - roommates is fine and all, and not everyone is going to get to live in their own place in their 20s, but that's one reason why building more of those units can actually help free up the bigger ones for single families.
That makes sense. Of corse you also have many who can’t or don’t want to have kids, or are retired, divorced etc.
In the US I believe most apartment buildings have one owner, but even in the outside of the east coast I’ve seen the occasional building that helps finance construction by selling apartments during development. I suspect there is a larger pool of potential buyers for a 300 sq ft cheap-finish apartment than a larger and more luxurious apartment, or single-family house.
If "gentrification" is a crisis in SF, could those gentry please come live in DC. We need the tax revenue.
The Washington Mero has terrible directions. What about painting arrow on the floors and walls? Redundant indications next station AND final destination AND to/away from Metro Center. And although better than before stations are still gloomy. What about more LIGHT! And the public address system acoustics are so bad it only serves to interrupt one's podcast.
But the trains are running with much less delay than a few months ago. Good for someone in Metro administration!