City officials are tackling one of New York’s most persistent problems: lack of and inefficient use of space. The city suffers from too many family homes and not enough families to fill them, while apartments for couples and singles are in short supply. Many existing apartments were simply not designed with modern living in mind, driving people to illegally modify them.
To deal with this problem the city is giving a pilot development contract to Monadnock Development LLC, who will develop micro apartments for city living. These apartments are designed to use space-saving innovations like lofted beds, folding tables, murphy beds and more to get the most living space out of the least amount of real estate. Special design considerations are being made to ensure people don’t feel claustrophobic.
Although New York legislative history is full of the city working with developers and contractors on projects, this marks one of the few times the city has incentivized innovation. If the pilot project is a success, you can expect more city units to be converted to micro apartments. When can you expect to move into your very own micro apartment? Probably not until roughly 2015. Micro apartments were also designed to take minimal time to build.