At last count, 780 micro-housing units were cleared for occupancy in Seattle, with another 1,598 units in the pipeline. No other American city comes close.
THE SMELL of garlic rises from the frying pan as two women in flannel pajama pants and beige slippers sauté shrimp and noodles on a range top in a shared kitchen just inside the main entrance to the apartment building.
As they cook, a steady stream of sneaker-clad tenants, some walking dogs, stride down the hall toward the elevator. They barely glance into the kitchen despite the pungent aromas and the conversation taking place around the square, steel table that dominates the room.
The women make fast work of the cooking, then quickly clean up and head back to their apartment to study over steaming bowls of noodles. “They’re the only ones I’ve seen use the kitchen, but then, I really don’t use the physical space that much,’’ says Jesse Yem, 21, a psychology major at Seattle University who has lived here for five months. “I come here to sleep, and that’s about it.’’
In fact, he’s home now only because he got a rare break between school and work as a part-time IT assistant, and returned to take a shower. His typical routine: “I get home from work, relax a little bit, go to sleep, wake up and go to class.” His meals usually consist of ramen, bagels or all manner of sandwich. Yem, whose thick black hair hangs over sleepy eyes, occupies one of the 92 micro-units at Alder Flats, a clean, modern, seven-story complex that occupies a city block between 10th and 11th streets on the edge of First Hill, a few blocks from Seattle U, where old multifamily housing once sat. It’s Yem’s first venture in solo living, and he’s still adjusting to the silence and the cost of living: $1,000 for 200 square feet, utilities and Wi-Fi included. It’s a lot for a small space, but in pure dollar terms, it’s a deal, he says. Other complexes nearby rent for hundreds more, don’t include utilities and usually rent to people with established credit or rental histories. “I’m perfectly fine with my apartment,’’ says Yem. “It’s not outrageous compared to other places on the hill.”
TINY APARTMENTS are hardly a new thing, but they’ve attracted attention and controversy here because developers have been building them at a quick clip — sometimes over the objections of neighbors — and filling them quickly with people seeking rents that match their circumstances and mobile lifestyles. The first of the breed, an aPodment development on 23rd Avenue East, opened in 2009 with 46 dormlike sleeping rooms with common kitchens. It was the brainchild of the late Bellevue developer Jim Potter, who found a loophole in Seattle’s building regulations. At the time, the city allowed up to eight unrelated people to live in one “dwelling” with a shared kitchen. The code didn’t say the rooms had to be tied together as a single unit, so Potter built a cross between an apartment building and a boardinghouse, where someone could rent a sleeping room as small as 100 square feet with a private bath and share a kitchen with up to seven others renters. A micro-housing building spree ensued that gave Seattle more such units than any city in the country. At last count, 782 micro-housing units were cleared for occupancy in Seattle, with another 1,598 units in the pipeline. No other American city comes close. Once the pipeline is cleared, though, no future Potter-style hybrids will be allowed: The city changed the rules in October after neighbors railed against the projects. Congregate housing — group housing arrangements such as dorms and senior housing that use common areas — is still allowed.
Janette says two factors are critical to micro-housing: light and height. Earlier designs tended to be tall and skinny to accommodate higher ceilings and capture sunlight; more recent designs include atriums that bring light inside. Micro-living requires a ruthless eye for economy. “What the micros have taught me is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t have as much stuff as I do and don’t need that stuff,” Janette says. “I mean, think about how much of your living space just goes to storage. Footprint (a micro-housing developer) has this great tagline: ‘It’s just what you need.’ ” MORE
