Two recent news stories highlight a possible surge in the development of housing in high cost rental markets like New York and Washington, DC. A New York Times article and NPR story featured approaches to living in small housing units, or micro units, as a means of providing an affordable alternative to high rent living. In New York, the first batch of prefabricated micro housing units are being assembled in the Brooklyn Navy Yard  and are about to be put in place this Spring. In DC, the story tells us about the push for smaller living by featuring an apartment building in the U Street Corridor as well as a tiny house community that had a promising start, but demonstrates the challenges for a cooperative effort to realize long-term stability within an urban setting.

With rents of $2,000-$3,000 for the New York units and more than $1,700 in Washington, DC, these micro units would still be out of range for many lower income renters. However, the ability to prefabricate the units for a fixed cost that is significantly lower than the per unit cost of more traditional affordable housing, micro units present possibilities for expanding affordable housing choices. A micro unit may allow a means for enhancing opportunities for permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals, for example. As noted in the articles, the micro unit offers a home while also encouraging community by living outside the unit and engaging with neighbors while using common area amenities and the resources of the broader neighborhood. And, in many ways, the micro unit notion has been in place for a while through senior living communities of smaller units and shared common areas.

It is a creative approach pushed by the need for housing in high rent urban markets that also offers possibilities for real innovations in creating more affordable housing across communities. It would be interesting to hear from those of you who have looked at this approach or developed projects using the micro unit concept to see how it is shaping the effort to provide affordable housing and what impact it is having on providing sustainable housing options.