Portland’s Small-House Movement Is Catching On | Hacker News Reader

Portland’s Small-House Movement Is Catching On

nytimes.com

53 pointsspking92 comments

Nevermind the fact that all over the world people have been living in smaller houses on average compared to those in the U.S. for many years.

But, what I think is unfortunate in house design and construction is that houses are built for use < 100 years, aren't easily upgradable via conduits, etc., and assume that weather and electricity/gas/water usage and cost as a fraction of income and will stay consistent.

As for materials, Aerogel's Spaceloft http://www.buyaerogel.com/product/spaceloft-10-mm-cut-to-siz... that could significantly decrease residential energy needs is barely spoken of, few spend more on quality insulated windows, many are content with hardiplank vs. masonry even though brick provides better insulation and doesn't need painting, cold-formed steel is a better option and would reduce deforestation in combination with increased taxes on the paper industry to drive consumers to use electronic alternatives, the same crap roof shingles are used and few use solar even as solar technology has vastly improved.

We could be building small modern castles that we could hand down, but instead we still build cheap throwaways.

It doesn't help that the aerogel alternative is 5x the cost per sqft. Other cheaper insulation types are really good already.

> Other cheaper insulation types are really good already.

This is short-term thinking.

I don't expect the insulation in my house to be sufficient for the significantly increased and/or decreased temperatures caused by deforestation, CO2 pollution, ice melting, etc.

Yes, we will have moved out by the time it will matter, but I think my children and their children could've potentially lived comfortably in our house had it been built with the best materials available today. And with more insulation, air conditioning wouldn't be causing even more warming:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/sunday-review/air-conditio...

Substantially improved insulation in new housing and stopping deforestation could get the world back on track.

Only the wealthy have the luxury of being able to engage in long-term thinking about this stuff. Most regular people have to stretch their finances to purchase a house at all, so they have to make compromises on building materials.

By building smaller houses with better materials, we can reduce the energy requires to heat and cool them, slow acceleration of CO2 generation, and reduce maintenance costs.

If you can't afford to even build a tiny house with great materials, perhaps you can with the help of several family members or friends or we could work out deals where domiciles are time shared during the day; while you're at work, someone else can live there. We really only need a place to live for 1/3 of the day unless you're too young/too old/sick/diseased/injured.

If you don't want to think about the long-term future of humanity or just don't give a crap about your ancestors- fine, but I'm not with you on that.

We're past the tipping point now, so we have to come up with better solutions, or we're screwed:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-be...

> If you can't afford to even build a tiny house with great materials, perhaps you can with the help of several family members or friends or we could work out deals where domiciles are time shared during the day; while you're at work, someone else can live there. We really only need a place to live for 1/3 of the day unless you're too young/too old/sick/diseased/injured.

That's great except most of the population (at least in the US) lives on, very roughly at least, the same schedule so they need the space at the same time between 8pm and 8am.

But, what I think is unfortunate in house design and construction is that houses are built for use < 100 years

We could be building small modern castles that we could hand down

While I see value in structures standing as monuments to be handed down to future generations - mostly large structures built for public use - I can't say that I've met a 100-year-old-house that hasn't had significant shortcomings. Renovations upon renovations to upgrade electrical, plumbing, HVAC have the potential to make building interiors look like a hodgepodge of bolt-on improvements. Then, one still contends with features that fall out of modern building code: that narrow staircase or the low ceiling in the basement or no windows in the bedrooms.

At a certain point, one cannot predict the housing requirements of the future and it would be more economical, and humane, to just start from a pile of dirt once again.

> At a certain point, one cannot predict the housing requirements of the future and it would be more economical, and humane, to just start from a pile of dirt once again.

That's true. But if the next generation did not have to build their own houses it would give them a 'dividend' passed down by the previous generation and that wealth would ultimately give them more economic freedom and fewer opportunity costs.

Then with those advantages, any problems will be easier to face, such as starting from the pile of dirt again.

Otherwise each generation is constantly facing the same struggles with paying the rent.

Also consider, and I think this was implicit in what the OP was saying, that closed loop systems might make many existing problems relating to maintenance obsolete. So the next iteration of building might take place in two or four generations from now instead of for each one.

Sadly truly effective maintenance free filter technology appears to be holding closed loop systems development back. I know Kamen was trying to build a Slingshot mechanism but so far as I know this has not bourne any fruit. This is the kind of unsexy, hard stuff that Silicon Valley need to be pulling together.

1) Most families have more than one child.

2) Lots of young adults are going to chase the best opportunities in their fields, which are not accessible from the towns they grow up in.

3) Even only children don't get to inherit the house until parents die or move to a retirement facility. This is moving later and later into middle age, well after the "I want a house and marriage and kids" stage.

I don't think inheriting housing is a solution.

There is a thought that the "disposability" of Japanese housing [1] has played some role in Japan's economic issues. Housing can still serve as something of an inter-generational value transfer even if children don't end up living in the actual house/land. (Which I agree isn't all that common.)

[1] http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-are-japanese-homes-dispo...

>Housing can still serve as something of an inter-generational value transfer

Except inheritance comes when you need it least: late middle age, when the house is already paid off or close and there's little time for savings to compound before retirement.

Paying for (most of) your children's education is a much more effective form of inter-generational value transfer: it comes at the time young adults face the greatest expenses relative to their earning power, and lets them reap the benefits of a high-end career without excessive debt (so they can actually build wealth).

I don't disagree with any of that. At least given full healthy lives and reasonably successful careers, inherited money from parents is often going to come after it would have the greatest impact.

But if housing is treated as a more disposable asset (which is presumably less efficient in many cases than updating and remodeling) the cost of that decreased efficiency comes from somewhere. Perhaps from a grandchild's college fund.

This is a misunderstanding. I was not taking about inheritances. The word generation can have two meanings. One is for each iteration of family members. The other is with respect to human society. I meant the second.

If houses could easily last 100-200 years without structural alteration being necessary then some generations would never pay for housing, just as we don't really pay for the capital cost of building most roads but the continued upkeep of them.

> Nevermind the fact that all over the world people have been living in smaller houses on average compared to those in the U.S. for many years.

Yes, my TH will the size of an average townhouse in sq ft in Ireland.

> what I think is unfortunate in house design and construction is that houses are built for use < 100 years, aren't easily upgradable via conduits, etc.

I agree but if you're clever you can low-tech hack by inserting pipes through the wall which contain what I'm going to call 'guide wires'.

That shall allow one to insert new cables into walls in the future.

You have to appreciate also that buildings get a 'deep upgrade' every 30-50 years. If only because with today's shit tier new growth wood and shoddy craftsmanship a house deteriorates around the time people finish paying a mortgage. What an unholy alliance there exists between bankers and building/material standards...

> Aerogel's Spaceloft that could significantly decrease residential energy needs is barely spoken of.

Don't tell internaut that! Things said by internaut in the last three months include:

> we do not see things like technologies to make heart attacks impossible or cheap aerogel insulation, the kinds of leaps we made in the past that really lifted all boats.

> using a material invented by them called aerogel (thin strips!) to thermally isolate the studs to prevent thermal bridging, it'll cost me just 1300 to raise the R (insulation) value by a min of 10% - 20%

> suppose the manufacture of aerogel could be brought down by 2 orders of magnitude.

The caveat I have to mention is that getting cheap aerogel production is not enough by itself to effect large industrial level change and an order of magnitude drop in energy bills for new builds. We also need an AR system (a special pair of glasses/goggles) that highlighted the places in the dwelling that require foam, special housings around penetrations, beads of chaulk, all in order to prevent the air escaping. Good insulation is close to worthless without the correct methods to prevent air infiltration.

Myron Ferguson does a nice demonstration of what I'm talking about on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhv9iFE3AY4

The passive house people are getting there but that will take forever unless they can be augmented by AR. So that is a good B2B start-up idea.

> We could be building small modern castles that we could hand down, but instead we still build cheap throwaways.

Yeah. The next generations should not have to worry about building their own houses unless they really wanted to.

My problem with modern building systems is that they are biased towards modern architecture styles I dislike. My attitude is the same as most normal people. Passive house cannot succeed without allow traditional building styles to exist.

Since houses are viewed as bank accounts and not as dwellings by most US folk, it is going to be difficult to convince them not to value marketability over efficiency. Especially since the energy cost is small compared to the finance fees and property taxes paid.

Eliminating zoning rules and "voluntary" homeowners associations and eliminating property taxes would help.

> Since houses are viewed as bank accounts and not as dwellings by most US folk, it is going to be difficult to convince them not to value marketability over efficiency.

Not worried about that.

The costs of heating and cooling a dwelling + the maintenance and upkeep are actually way in excess (1x - 2x) of the original house price adjusted for inflation. You get... dis-economies of scale the more you go up.

Housing markets are cyclical over long periods with nil capital gain.

Put the two together and you see a dismal end as entropy catches up. Not even to mention that this process shall accelerate if economic growth falters.

> Especially since the energy cost is small compared to the finance fees and property taxes paid.

Energy costs at first appear to be a small encroachment, but they really mount up over time in the most astounding way. I don't have a graph to hand but I remember being very impressed by it.

What is called THOWs or Tiny Houses on Wheels do not pay taxes or association fees. They are classified as vehicles and hence do not need to pay property taxes. They are also not very likely to encounter HOAs since complaints drive them away on their wheels to greener pastures. Sometimes they visit RV parks and pay those fees but those aren't very much.

> Eliminating zoning rules and "voluntary" homeowners associations and eliminating property taxes would help.

Of course! And I think such 'revolutions' will happen in time, because 'living like a normal American/European' will just become uneconomical.

>What is called THOWs or Tiny Houses on Wheels do not pay taxes or association fees.

So RVs or campers with a cute name.

Categorically yes, like genetically, but phenotypically no. TH are more home-like and more comfortable, even at this early stage in their evolution. RVs can be quite luxurious but in my opinion they are distinctly different to THs.

That can mostly be attributed to the use case:

RV (original intent) usecase was temporary living, moving often, the TH usecase is permanent living, moving rarely.

Compare:

https://i.reddituploads.com/303b76eaa06e495f8381f2bca3cf48f2...

https://i.reddituploads.com/ff4dee466ad34517bf0c1149ac3ba934...

with

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/crjeV4QxGmY/maxresdefault.jpg

http://www.bobhurleyrv.com/console/watermark.php?src=48636&w...

http://images.rvs.com/FOH/1222412/1000x/2016_dutchmen_aeroli...

It's interesting to think about energy vs finance costs. I will run some numbers for my own house.

I recommend this website:

http://www.finehomebuilding.com/2009/09/18/a-complete-guide-...

Fine Home Building is the HN of construction tech, I never fail to find something useful that saved money or gave me an idea or prevented me from doing something stupid. I'm sure I wouldn't have come across the concept of a Rainscreen (despite reading several construction books) but for them and I suspect that alone saved my butt.

>> upgradable via conduits, etc.

> I agree but if you're clever you can low-tech hack by inserting pipes through the wall which contain what I'm going to call 'guide wires'.

Pipes can be conduits. And instead of guide wires, many use fish tape.

By pipes as conduits did you mean empty PVC piping or routing within existing pipework somehow?

Thanks for mentioning fish tape since I wouldn't have heard of it before, it looks like the correct terms are 'draw wire' and 'fish tape' and they are used together.

While I'm charmed by the concept of a totally custom tiny house, built to fit my lifestyle, I also find the "movement" a bit amusing. It's as though Americans haven't been living in trailers/campers for generations. This is just the glamorous version of it.

Isn't paper almost exclusively produced from fast-growing tree farms these days?

Could be, but those fast growing species are sometimes non-native (to the country), not integrated into the native ecological system over centuries of adaptation and symbiosis, huge water suckers, stifle native plant and tree growth, etc. And often the native forests with much greater biodiversity (and multiple plants valuable and tradionally known and used for food, fibre, fuel, firewood, shelter, herbs and medicines, etc., have been chopped down to plant those monoculture tree farms for, say, paper alone. Seen and know of actual cases of this in some parts of India I am familiar with. Even the state goverments now know of this and there are now some efforts to reverse the trend. An example: eucalyptus and wattle in the mountains of South India, particularly the Western Ghats.

Yes. Using less paper to save trees is like eating less to save corn.

The real reason to use less paper is to reduce the other environmental damage caused by paper manufacturing.

The way that people live changes over time. Any house built 100 years ago is functionally obsolete and needs significant remodeling to be comfortable to modern middle-class Americans. And have you ever been in a castle? The look nice to tourists but actually living in one would suck.

Masonry construction is problematic in earthquake zones. It can work with enough steel reinforcement, but then the construction costs become too high.

In any place worth living the real value is in the land, not the house. Build houses so that they can be easily deconstructed and the materials recycled instead going to landfills.

>In any place worth living the real value is in the land, not the house.

That's a pretty sweeping generalization. I know that, for some people, life isn't worth living outside the core of a few hip cities, but they're really not the norm.

In general, at least outside of cities, the value of any structures tracks tends to track to the value of the land--assuming the land isn't very large (10s of acres and up). I'd guess that equal values for land setup for utilities and the structure itself is a fairly typical rule of thumb in a lot of places. (The median price for a home is about $200K. The construction cost for a new house is going to be a pretty significant chunk of that.)

A lot of people in these comments seem to be confused over the word "tiny", despite the article never using that word. Tiny homes are a vague category but generally under 400 square feet [1]. 800 square feet isn't small by my standards (I grew up in a mobile home) but compared to the average American home of 2,600 square feet it is [2].

By the way, more space-efficient housing is desperately needed for new real estate developments in Portland. As a matter of fact, it should be mandated. Real estate developers should not be able to treat this city like a personal casino while working class families (many that have been here for decades) get pushed out. In this regard, treating the issue as an outlet for "design statements" is reflective of the problem. Shelter should be a basic human right; hyperinflating the value of it when there isn't enough to go around is to rub salt in the wounds of lower income people.

[1] http://thetinylife.com/what-is-the-tiny-house-movement/

[2] http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/04/real_estate/american-home-si...

I live in Portland and I'm going through the planning process for an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) over my existing garage in my backyard.

I believe the Portland ADU maximums are around 800sqft for the structure, so if you're adding a level above your (20'x20') garage, the upper residential level will be around 400sqft. A 400sqft footprint is certainly not unheard of for an apartment, but for a standalone residential structure that includes all the mechanical systems is relatively small. The tiny house community does seem to be designing for much smaller (150-200sqft?) sized spaces.

Land-use wise, I agree that this housing is needed in Portland and other metros with similar housing stock. Everyone wants to add housing, but no one wants to tear down charming Victorians/Craftsman Bungalow blocks to make way for more density / apartment buildings. As a result encouraging people to add residential units in backyards and basements makes a ton of sense.

One thing that wasn't obvious in the article is that the city is simply waiving the development fees for ADUs to encourage their construction. Previously, one could have built the same backyard structures, but would have had to pay ~$20K+ in development fees.

Having lived in an apartment that is probably could be considered "tiny house size" at 250 square feet with my wife, just why?

I was living there with my wife and we couldn't really cook, the bathroom sucked (literally 1.5 square foot of walking space), we couldn't do stuff like yoga, I'd I wanted to order a box of something I had to be careful, pets would have been awful (especially cats)...

I can go on and on, overall it was probably a worth while experience. However, our quality of life dropped dramatically while we lived there (for about a year). I'm so glad I now can actually stretch if I want to, make food, setup a desk for each of us, etc.

Assuming this is not just a troll...

1. These are usually meant for one person, not two.

2. Why'd you live there in the first place? Presumably because you couldn't or didn't want to afford anything else.

3. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean someone else won't.

4. This is easily forgotten, but average American dwelling size has been increasing for decades: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/09/13/how-the-ave... or http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5525283, even in the face of recent de-materialization due to digitization. It ought to be possible for people to be able to choose from a wider array of dwelling sizes, rather than forcing people into larger units than they need or want.

1.The average tiny house is somewhere around 150 -180 sqft, 250 sqft is about double - thus 2 people seemed reasonable.

2. And we were indeed trying to save money, we didn't need to, but we did.

3. Totally agree: The main reason I'm sharing my experience, is that so many people glamorize the "Tiny house" movement, but (having lived it) I can tell you it sucks.

4. I agree with wider range - but personally (along with my wife) we will never go below 500 sqft for two people again. we each need some space, and it doesnt really even save moneh. We ended up not even saving much money because we had to eat out probably 75% of the time, because there was no room to store food and cook properly. Generally, you also just get exhausted. It's tough living in a small place, you have to spend almost all your time outside or you'll go nuts and can't really have friends over.

In all fairness, there's a big difference between 250 square feet and 800-900 square feet.

I agree that you get into the 250-400 or so square foot range and there are a lot of compromises. I've stayed in well-designed 200 square foot hotel rooms in NYC and, while they were comfortable enough to sleep in, I certainly wouldn't want to live there.

(I know there's a certain cultish appeal to to these small spaces but I also wonder whether, by the time you add up the space you need for bathroom, minimal cooking, some storage, hallways/stairs/elevators in the case of multi-unit dwellings, etc. whether going from compact to tiny really saves all that much.)

They're talking about 800-1200sq², not 250sq². But I've spent some time in a 320sq² rooftop apartment, and it was more than enough for a couple. It's crucial that the layout and furniture are designed/chosen for the purpose, instead of trying to shrink a larger home.

I think you mean ft^2, not sq^2. A square squared is a tesseract, a four-dimensional object that is rather low on the priority list for most homebuilders.

Right :) I'm more used to m².

I don't think of 1200sf+ as being a "tiny home". More like a not-large home.

Though tiny houses are a thing, the article is about small houses. 450 sq ft is almost 2x what you're talking about. 850 is more than 3x.

> Having lived in an apartment that is probably could be considered "tiny house size" at 250 square feet with my wife, just why?

Because you are a New Yorker. Even Tiny Housers think living in New York is crazy.

> However, our quality of life dropped dramatically while we lived there (for about a year). I'm so glad I now can actually stretch if I want to, make food, setup a desk for each of us, etc.

All I can say to you is that clever design does exist which makes living in small spaces much less claustrophobic. It is just that in the UK and New York nobody appears to take those lessons to heart.

Things like this:

https://www.stashvault.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/secret...

And the use of unusual roofs like Mansard and Gambrel would transform many small spaces to be livable.

I have seen so many terrible designs in Britain. I think for half of them it is only explicable by a cat walking over the architects keyboard. The older buildings are nearly all fine so it is some modern retardation. Most of them have mold.

This is the product of mental illness:

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/624_351/images/live/p0/25...

Something really went wrong with society in the 70s and this is a visual expression of it.

Time has not been kind to certain architectural styles--either in terms of the aesthetic impression they make on most people or on how the look of the materials has held up. Brutalism is one of those styles.

Very true, with a minor correction. Time has been brutal to certain architectural styles!

The tiny home movement mostly compromises new builds that are architected with livability in mind through more efficient and clever uses of space than the average house. Loft bed, various kinds of built-in storage, sliding and pocket doors, multi-function rooms, folding furniture all help to make a much more efficient use of space.

They're still not for everyone, but comparing them to conventional studios isn't fair.

Serious Question. Do people not entertain at their homes anymore? If I want to have three couples over for dinner, I don't see I could cook for and accommodate them comfortably in these tiny homes. My in laws from Europe typically come to stay with us for three months every year. I often have out of town friends drop in for a few nights. What about having the family over for Thanksgiving? Also, if the answer is just to go to restaurants/bars for all social events, that would seem to be more expensive in the long run. Just curious.

I'm not an architect or tiny house owner, but I have friends and family stay in my large studio apartment fairly often.

A modern, open floor plan is a big help. If you stop building walled-off kitchen/dining/family/living spaces, you have a lot more efficient use of the space you actually use.

Reuse of space is also huge. You can temporarily rearrange furniture for a big dinner and put it back before it's time to sleep.

Another angle... if you stand to save $100k building your house, you can save a lot of money by putting up your family in a nearby hotel overnight.

> If you stop building walled-off kitchen/dining/family/living spaces, you have a lot more efficient use of the space you actually use.

I though that fad was gone. That's a nightmare in real use. I don't want the meat grease smell in my bed. I don't want the kitchen noise while watching TV in the sofa or chatting in the living room. I don't want the music or the children noise in the kitchen. And I especially don't want all visitors packed together in the same space 24/24, without any half-privacy time to spend in smaller groups.

Oh, and since I am the kind of person who spends most of parties inside the kitchen rather than in the living or dining room, how do I manage? :-)

It's not necessarily either-or. I grew up in a very old house that a totally separate dining room and kitchen. When I bought a house it was the same. After a major remodel for structural reasons, the kitchen and dining room were opened up--which turned out to be a big improvement--but the living room spaces were still largely separate. This actually works pretty well for me.

In practice, when I have people over, we still spend a lot of time in the kitchen/dining area--which is also sort of the "mud room" etc.--but the entertaining/hangout area is still somewhat separated.

I think more open floor plans than was historically the norm make sense--especially in smaller areas. But, if you have the space, walls can still be useful.

I guess it also depends what stage of life you're in. If you coach your kid's soccer team and want to invite the team and parents over for an end of season party, you've got about 50 people coming over after the game. That would be tough with 800 square feet.

> Do people not entertain at their homes anymore?

I think about this a lot too. I have a real minimalist streak and occasionally entertain fantasies of radically downsizing my life. 95% of the time, I could be quite happy in a few hundred feet.

But that other 5% of the time, I'm having friends over and cooking or entertaining. At that time, I really appreciate having more space.

> Also, if the answer is just to go to restaurants/bars for all social events, that would seem to be more expensive in the long run.

Unless you entertain a lot, I think owning your own home large enough to entertain is the more expensive option in the long run.

Where I'm from, most people I know live in smaller apartments than these houses, often with two kids. The trick is to have the minimum number of rooms (only bedrooms + bathroom + kitchen + living room - or fewer), and to allocate a good portion to the living room, which can be adjusted according to the needs of the moment. Many households have extendable dining tables, foldable chairs (either hollywood-style or fully wooden), etc.

Having a couple stay for three months would be troublesome, but dinner for eight or ten is perfectly doable.

Meanwhile, in Seattle, Micro Apartments have largely been regulated into dust: http://www.sightline.org/2016/09/06/how-seattle-killed-micro.... Seattle is doing somewhat better at affordable housing than SF: http://www.vox.com/2015/12/23/10657690/seattle-housing-crisi..., but that's a really low bar and it is not doing as well as it ought to be.

Just because someone wants to live in a city does not mean the city is doing a thing wrong by not doing every possible thing to accommodate them. That Seattle article is practically bursting with entitlement; she's demanding the neighborhood change to meet her living/working preferences.

Why? Why are her demands any more valid than the people who live there already, or who can afford non-hyperdense housing and don't want to live in a neighborhood with it?

It's hard not to see this as something like locusts complaining about farmers trying to stop them from devouring their crops. Maybe, just maybe, the things that make Capital Hill so compelling for her are the very things she wants to change about it to meet her wants.

800 sq. ft. is considered "tiny"? Ours is considered to be "family of three or four", worth half a million $, and it only weighs in at 1200 sq. ft. Yes, 50% larger, but when I think "tiny" I think of those houses that would fit between a couple of rows of corn in the garden. These are just mother-in-law cottages before someone stuck a trendy name on them.

This is a strange read for someone comming from a country where houses of 74m² are normal..

Even in California there are many houses around 70sqm.

My advice regarding NYT trend pieces remains the same: always disregard them.

I think calling an 800-1200sqft house "tiny" is a bit ridiculous. My apartment is about 35m2, or ~400sqft, and it's still large enough to have a good-size kitchen and bathroom, large wooden dining table, couch and comfy chairs, a working area with a large desk and a decent amount of storage space. I have no problem having any reasonable number of guests over.

It is the average size of a new UK house I believe, just under 1000 sq ft, 3 bedrooms.

In France, the average apartment is 66 m² (700 sq ft) and the average house 110 m² (1200 sq ft).

Per person, that's respectively 33 m² (350 sq ft) and 44 m² (475 sq ft).

I hope I got the conversion to barbarian units right, but I do not guarantee it.

As a developer, I found taking several months off work to build a tiny house very rewarding. I also now have a 100% formaldehyde (and other toxins) free home for my son.

I am (slowly) posting videos if anyone wants to see how to build a 400ft tiny house: http://tinyhousemansion.com

I insulated the home to death and learned a lot about how houses should be built to save money and reduce energy usage.

Entertaining people is limited to one family or so at a time, but since my family is the smallest of our circles we almost always go to other people's houses.

Well, if it is catching on, it is not catching on in Portland. The new houses being built are maximizing the square footage and taking up as much foot print as possible.

Now some people are adding small ADU(additional dwelling unit) and these often are small. They are meant to be rented out. But these are not primary residences.

If Portland is anything like Seattle, the problem is that the absurd zoning encourages developers to build larger houses to maximize their return on the investment in acquiring the land. This is based on conversations with architects and builders where I've asked about this specific problem.

This means that I could afford many newer houses if they were built out to something like 1800-2200 sqft which would still be more space than I need. But instead all new houses are built out to 3000+ sqft making them >$1m.

Whatever, I've been living here in Portland since 1997 and to see what has happened to the housing costs in the city in the last 10 years is sickening. What's next a shipping container for 500k?

This whole issue of affordable housing seems a bit ridiculous to me. The people complaining about affordable housing are urban young people wanting to live in San Francisco, Portland, etc. There are TONS of affordable housing, but not in hip, rich places where these young people want to live. Come south, Atlanta has tons of affordable housing. Austin Texas, Tampa Florida, Akron Ohio for heaven sake's! There is no affordable housing crisis, there is a crisis of unreasonable expectations and spoiled people.

Yes. People want to live near locales with services, infrastructure, and the majority of jobs. Fucking entitled shits.

Except there are plenty of places with services, infrastructure, good jobs, AND affordable housing.

Which are?

I'm not even being facetious. My city is incredibly expensive to live in. I'm willing to hear solid alternatives.

Can I ride my bicycle in those places without being swerved at or screamed at?

Yes in most suburbs of the US it's safe to ride your bike.

If anything has ever needed a citation, it's that little gem. Suburbs are about the most dangerous place in the world for cyclists. You have lots of traffic, unlike the country, but it's moving really fast and unaccustomed to anything on the road but cars, unlike the city.

Source: lived in US suburbs most of my life. Still have a rib that aches some mornings from when I got hit years ago (the driver was shocked when I started calling the police).

I was being an ass. It wasn't meant literally but if I'm wrong then i guess we need to tell all these kids to hang up their bikes. Seriously, kids ride their bikes around the neighborhood like idiots (no regard for auto traffic). If I rode my bike like that on city streets I wonder how long I'd live.

"Seriously, adults drive their cars around the neighborhood like idiots"

ftfy. If you're the one operating a two ton machine that moves at high speeds in residential neighborhoods, the onus of responsibility for not killing someone is on you.

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history

This is going to sound like an exaggeration but it's not.. In my 5 years in salt lake for grad school, every single year I personally saw someone get hit by a car while riding their bike.. My first advisors other student got "doored" while biking, and apparently my second advisor was hospitalized at some point on his bike... Currently living in Portland which does feel much safer while riding, maybe due to having bike lanes and signs everywhere..

Bike lanes and signs are important, but perhaps more than all that is just having lots of other cyclists. When drivers become accustomed to looking for cyclists, or even are more likely to be cyclists themselves who happen to be driving at the moment, it makes a world of difference.

I definitely agree there is an element of "cyclist empathy" from being cyclists themselves .. Probably doesn't help that in Salt Lake, 5 months out of the year (July/ August due to heat and Dec-Feb due to ice) it is impractical to use a bicycle as primary transporation, and that surely loses a portion of people who might otherwise commute.

This was a major factor for me also. I lived in a 'hip' city in Virginia for 5 years and faced weekly incidents with drivers, ranging from clueless to irate, that nearly cost me life and limb.

I live in the bay area now and I can't recall the last time I had a threatening encounter with a driver.

Well, the bay is big. I was unfortunate enough to work in Newark (CA) for about 8 months and got yelled at a lot just riding from Fremont BART to my job. Working in SF was much better, unsurprisingly.

I moved to Austin for 3 months and tried living without a car. Don't bother trying.

It's not unreasonable for someone who works in SF (1000/sf+) or Oakland (500/sf+) to expect to be able to afford a home. I'm currently in Tampa for the weekend and it's not a replacement for Oakland - in any way. These places are more affordable because they are less desirable...

The real issues - in CA at least - are the property tax lock-in that incentivized NIMBYism and the gross costs of lawsuits and regulations for developers. I believe we need the regulations that protect the sensitive environments and to discourage sprawl, yet we currently make it impossible to redevelop brown and grayfield (commercial retail, etc) lots or even single-family zoned neighborhoods that could accommodate flats (2-4 units per lot).

Zoning code has become a problem in desirable cities that have a housing shortage. It's not just small housing that has value - it's any housing.

For people that value cultural diversity and unusual opportunities, cities like Portland and San Francisco are much better for that in terms of diversity of culture than most of the places listed (Austin excepted). I think trading space and amenities to live in a cooler, more interesting place is totally reasonable. If you are happy with a bike/public transit, and don't mind living in 200 sqft of space, and being around a thriving local art and music scene is important to you, why not.

Remember that what you value is not what other people value. Living in Tampa or Akron might fulfill your needs, for others it might make them question their reason for existence.

>there is a crisis of unreasonable expectations and spoiled people.

We do have a crisis of entitlement: people feel entitled to hold the vertical space in their neighborhoods empty when it is worth much more than they're willing to pay.

The unreasonable luxuries being demanded here are unobstructed views and a cozy small-town feeling for the price of one house purchased decades ago, when they are worth the price of several dozen skyscrapers.

Not to mention the horizontal space they demand everyone else dedicate to parking, so "their" on-street space is always available.

This is so bizarre. I knew I wanted to keep my car, so I filtered my search to apartments with parking available and factored it into the rental price in my comparisons. My building's garage has pretty high occupancy - the demand is there. It's unclear why the developer would need to be legally coerced to add parking, when the market demand is there. And if the market demand isn't there, what's the point of an empty parking garage?

Primarily because people who were in the area before the developer made the apartment came to consider the on-street parking "theirs" and didn't want to share it with newcomers. It's a very inefficient allocation of space, not to mention a burden on the taxpayer to make everyone else purchase private automobile storage because you wish to have exclusive use of public automobile storage.

Why not simply build larger individual units, but stack many of them vertically? People don't like being cramped with nowhere to put their stuff.

Because a bit of air gap is a better sound/social/noise insulator than a thin wall of concrete. I liked the idea of living in an apartment. But after the dance troupe moved in above me and the screaming fuckfest adjacent to us I can see why people prefer houses.

I was also told I couldn't barbecue, which as a guy that loves to barbecue, has me looking at single family homes right now. In the same sqfootage and number of living quarters.

Great sound insulation can be fairly cheap during construction. Sadly it's generally an afterthought in the US and it adds around 2 inches to wall and floor thickness.

The idea seems to be reusing spaces between existing houses, so you probably couldn't neither spread them much wider nor make them very tall (since the existing houses seem to have only a couple of stories).

> Why not simply build larger individual units, but stack many of them vertically?

Certainly there is new development of high-rise apartment buildings and condos. But those remain out of reach for many people because the developers decided to add a dog spa or a quinoa bar or whatever in order to have an excuse to jack up the prices by 50%.

Even cities that are allowing new development are largely missing simple, no-bullshit housing for people whose incomes are above the poverty line but below six figures.

So, the city is allowing mother-in-law suites to be built (and then rented)?

Looks that way. And seems reasonable.

In dense residential areas with mostly free-standing homes, they seem to scale well. They don't dwarf existing units, they don't become eye-sores, etc. Done well, the remaining rear yard becomes a cozy, quiet nook (albeit now communal).

As far as I can tell, none of my local jurisdictions (NoVA) allow MIL cottages. Arlington allows MIL apartments (basement, attic conversions) but limits design/space and prohibits renting (literally only for family). Fairfax doesn't even allow that.

This has got to be one of the most out-of-touch articles I've seen on here.

800sqft is not "tiny". I live in an 800sqft house with two other people (my girlfriend, and a roomate), as well as a dog, and while we have talked about upgrading to a larger house at some point, it's never felt like a priority. We certainly don't feel like we're participating in some sort of "movement" or change in housing norms here (especially since our house was built in the 1950s).

Houses this size are really common here in Arizona. In fact, I'd bet that 800sqft is probably near the median for houses in my neighborhood. (https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4185818,-111.9412412,3a,75y,...)

How brave of Portland to allow these homes to be constructed.

not to mention they talk about a "movement." then come to find out none of these people actually live in these.. they're just rentals.. so hilarious.

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