Los Angeles girds for super-small condos

August 03, 2007|By Sharon Bernstein, Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Times staff writer Tiffany Hsu contributed to this report.

LOS ANGELES — Is this city ready for the 250-square-foot apartment?

That's what city planning officials have in mind with a series of new zoning proposals that would allow developers to build smaller condos and apartments than ever before.

The tiny units -- studios that officials hope will be as small as 250 square feet -- are part of a package of proposed zoning changes aimed at significantly increasing density downtown.

The idea is to encourage developers to continue to build high-rises downtown even as the market appears poised to slow down, while also spurring them to build units that are more affordable.

Supporters, some developers and Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes downtown, say these rules will encourage the construction of housing at a time when the city desperately needs it, especially for the poor.

"This is a landmark event," said Dan Rosenfeld, a principal in the development firm Urban Partners, which is behind several downtown projects. "The people who care about downtown L.A. have been waiting for these ordinances for a long time."

But the proposal is already drawing criticism from those who see it as another effort to boost development in a region that is already in a high-rise building boom.

Some land-use experts question whether there is much of a market for tiny apartments downtown. Others fear overcrowding and slum conditions if the market goes sour and the units are too densely packed.

"I see it as creating a neighborhood where parking is horrendous and families are squeezing themselves into these units which are very small because they are affordable," said Noreen McClendon, a developer of affordable housing. "It's just a tenement."

The tiny apartment is a fairly new concept in Southern California, which has a long history of suburban sprawl and larger spaces.

But in New York, Boston, San Francisco and many European and Asian cities, residents have squeezed into tiny apartments for decades, usually because the lure of the downtown area is so great, and the prices for larger places so high.

Gretchen Broussard, who co-owns Tiny Living, a Manhattan store that sells furnishings for small spaces, lived in a 200-square-foot apartment in that borough until five years ago.

"I couldn't even turn around in the space," Broussard said. "I maxed out every inch of the wall space, mounted everything to get it off the floor. ... Every New Yorker is continually purging stuff because they don't have room."

In San Francisco, Martin Eng rents a 300-square-foot studio in the Nob Hill neighborhood, across from the Ritz-Carlton hotel. Though the apartment is his primary residence, Eng has several other homes around the state and said the studio is livable only because it has a good view and plenty of light.

With a rent-controlled cost of $400 a month, the studio is a convenient city crash pad for Eng, who works in investment.

"Mine is a tiny place, not somewhere you would want to entertain or bring people," said Eng, 53. "It's like a poor man penthouse. You can't really be proud of it."

Although the new Los Angeles ordinance does not directly address the size of the apartments that could be built, it would remove all restrictions on the number of units that developers could put in a single building, a move that planners hope will result in residences as small as 250 square feet. That's about the size of a hotel room or a modest living room.

The ordinance also would let developers willing to reserve some apartments for low- and moderate-income families make their buildings 35 percent bigger than zoning rules normally allow and to opt out of providing half the open space typically required. Those who build units for those with very low incomes would not have to offer parking spaces for those residences.

Perry said the proposed rules would concentrate new housing in the downtown area while preserving single-family homes elsewhere.

The smallest units, Perry said, might be attractive to young professionals who want to buy a condo but can't afford anything larger, or to service workers who couldn't otherwise afford to buy or rent near their downtown jobs.

Burbank architect Mark Gangi, who teaches at the University of Southern California, said the rules could help to mold downtown into a lively metropolitan center.

The new apartments might be used by those who need an affordable place to live, he said, but they also might become pied-a-terre for professionals and others who want a modest place downtown.

Raphael Bostic, associate director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at USC, said developers might take advantage of the city's offer to let them build affordable units without parking spaces, because the cost of such parking can be prohibitive. But he predicted that "only the most adventurous would do the very small units."