2 Condos Were Illegally Converted into 18 Micro Apartments in NYC | Hacker News Reader

2 Condos Were Illegally Converted into 18 Micro Apartments in NYC

npr.org

25 pointstshannon22 comments

$600/mo to live steps from the Brooklyn Bridge? [0]

I imagine the former occupants are furious they have been "saved" from that "horror story" they were so forcefully subjected to.

I understand the fire code violations and that the other occupants of that building did not agree to live in a building of that density, so it is "not OK" in it's current form.

But it is also not OK to have minimum size requirements for living quarters in a capitalistic society where the rents are limitless.

You can't have one variable holding steady while the other related variable keeps shooting through the roof.

The entrepreneur in this story was obviously filling a societal need by breaking the laws that he broke.

[0] https://goo.gl/maps/rpCNVS23FBp5XMdQ6

Regulations have trade offs and side effects that supporters don't like to admit. See: Small vs. big government.

I lived in something like this when I moved to New York. A tiny (albeit regular-height) room in a converted loft. My 4+ roommates were split between full-time residents, like me, and part-timers who spent a few days in the city every week. The conversion was illegal: minimal personal space, shared bathrooms, no windows in every bedroom, likely unsegregated security deposits.

But the rent was cheap. Given the midtown location (and resulting savings in transportation), it was a steal. It let me save enough from a good entry-level job to co-found a start-up in my twenties. (It was also a terrific social space, letting people of different ages and backgrounds mix.)

I understand the need to remove code-violating apartments. But the code feels like it was written by NIMBYs opposed to density. Not people looking out for the public's safety.

It’s worth noting that this case turned a single-floor apartment into two floors of micro apartments with low ceilings, low enough that the inspector reportedly had to kneel. And there was also only one exit for all these micro apartments.

If that doesn’t scream fire tragedy waiting to happen, I don’t know what does.

This sounds a lot like the infamous "Ghost Ship" warehouse in Oakland, CA.

When they shut these down what do they do long term about the people living in them? Presumably they rented these places as they couldn’t afford anything built to building codes. It sounds like they were forced into a homeless shelter?

First of all, RTFA: > The tenants who had been living in the minuscule spaces "were offered emergency relocation assistance by the American Red Cross," the NYC building agency says.

Second, they were $600/month, which is low for NYC but not exactly the kind of rent level for people who would otherwise be homeless. This was also lower east side. For the same price you could split a bedroom somewhere further and commute in.

> First of all, RTFA

Err... that’s exactly what I said - emergency relocation because they made them homeless.

> For the same price you could split a bedroom somewhere further and commute in.

‘They were just people who didn’t want to share space’ seems unlikely for people literally sharing their vertical space so much they couldn't stand up.

Maybe, but if it were purely an issue of cost I probably wouldn't be looking within Manhattan proper. I'm sure travel convenience has at least played some factor in their decision to live where they are.

This is exactly the problem with zoning and building restrictions. So long as they're built safely (which these don't seem to have been) the size of the space shouldn't be up to the government. If people don't want to live in them they won't.

That doesn't work when there's no other viable options. So then there's just a race to the bottom.

Why can't we as a society dictate that there will be minimum standards that have to be met?

These days zoning also takes into account future plans for infrastructure and services. In 1900s New York it is perfectly legal to hoist up an unsanitary slum with no electric, water, sewer and gas.

Many people would live in conditions like that for affordable rent.

Until there is a fire. Oakland Ghost Ship says "Hi!" Can we have a substantial prison sentence for the landlord?

Agree, these were fire death traps and there should be criminal punishment.

I have no problems with tiny safe apartments though, I wish we’d zone for more of them.

It's all good until the illegal wiring burns the place down, which is liable to a) kill those people and b) be pretty bad for everyone else in the building.

> According to Gothamist, the condo is listed as a 634-square-foot unit. If the nine sub-units were divided evenly, each living space would measure about 70 square feet.

Since the unit was first divided horizontally before being subdivided, wouldn't each micro apartment have about 140 square feet of floor space?

n.b.: The 2015 International Building Code removed the requirement for at least one room with a minimum 120sf. Rooms must now have a minimum of 70sf. http://media.iccsafe.org/news/eNews/2014v11n20/2015_irc_sigc...

Ceiling heights must be at least 7'6". https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2015/chapter-12-interio...

This is pretty common in Hong Kong and San Francisco.

Elsewhere too. I lived in a 140 square feet studio here in Montevideo (not as expensive as SF but most expensive in South America), wasn´t too great but it was tolerable, I think slightly smaller is still liveable.

Other posters do have a point about probably illegal wiring and no fire exit planning. And the low ceiling must have sucked (Japanese micro apartments actually have high ceilings, mine was standard height).

Same thing with British student accomodation. Room size was ~ 10 m^2, but the building conformed to fire and sanitary code.

Except that those rooms are owned by the government, in case you're wondering about the obvious question: why clearly "such small apartments got approved" and yet there are no private apartments available under similar conditions.

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