Why North America zoning and building codes mean developers can't build nice family friendly "missing middle" housing/apartments
Why North America zoning and building codes mean developers can't build nice family friendly "missing middle" housing/apartments
We need to make our cities and towns more family friendly. This is called the "missing middle" in housing, and it's why in north america all we see are either large condo towers or single family homes, which also drives our urban sprawl problems.
Almost all new large towers/buildings in north america prioritize bachelor's units 1 and 2 bedroom units. Trying to find a well priced 3 or 4 bedroom in a "lively" downtown center, close to transit and work, with plenty of schooling in the area is almost impossible. It's also a factor in why cities became so empty during the pandemic, ie. Not to many families living permanently in cities.
Here's a good article that also talks about the same issue with some different apparment layouts, and why developers don't provide adequate family units.
https://www.centerforbuilding.org/blog/we-we-cant-build-family-sized-apartments-in-north-america
This together with zoning requirements in north america is pushing most cities and developers to only cater towards large towers or single family housing.
This video is also worth a watch to see how this ties in with car dependency in cities and suburbs.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
His whole series is worth watching. And seriously, this post is so much more informative and less party-politics than the other post on here about that “war-time” housing plan 🙄
Huh interesting
My gut reaction was that larger apartment buildings could use space more efficiently, but this was an interesting discussion about the other details around the layout
three bedrooms exist but are way costly compared to one or two bedrooms such that people might as well buy a detached house. Then also a condo will have much less general space. basements, attics, yards, and garages mean that even a rinky little two bedroom house will have much more space than a four bedroom condo.
You are correct they do exist in small quantities, and they do cost more then a single family home.
The reason the cost is higher is because apartment designs with a single long corridor down the middle cause a 3 or 4 bedroom coming off that corridor to usually have 200~300 sq foot more then needed in the layout/design.
Compared to a point access layout for example where layouts can be arranged in a multitude of ways and layouts can become more efficient in use of space.
This article here demonstrates these layouts a little better then I can, it also shows how the sq footages increases as more bedrooma are added along the single corridor layout.
https://www.centerforbuilding.org/blog/we-we-cant-build-family-sized-apartments-in-north-america
So all these factors essential drive a choice of either living in the suburbs in a single family home, or a 1 or 2 bedroom large condo towers in a city center.
The trouble with this is we are "missing the middle" housing as shown in these videos. Homes for growing families that don't want to live in the suburbs and don't or can't fit into a two bedroom apartment tower, or can't afford the 4 bedroom condo layout. Or families that don't want to stick their kid into a den without a window.
We need homes such a 4 plexes, 3-4 level condos, laneway homes, all the layouts that are essentially illegal in north america to build.
That increase is square footage with additions bedrooms is strange and seems a bit limited. I feel they are working under the theory all bedrooms have to have windows. We have one bedroom cooridoor condos that only have windows in the living space and the bedroom is windowless. The tree bedroom could easily have two on the left with a bathroom between them but one would be windowless and then the square footage would not need to be blown up.
don’t want to
8 billion snowflakes on the planet; it's either the purge or adaptation to consolidation.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
either large condo towers or single family homes, which also drives our urban sprawl problems
Large condo towers don't drive urban sprawl; they're the only thing we have fixing it.
Bad idea by the OP, or bad punctuation making an eats/shoots/leaves sentence?
America vs Rest-of-world pic
Build your building from firewood, or build it from building materials. The striking difference gives us two themes of headline:
-
family rebuilding with help from neighbours after 9th floor apartment catches fire, burns for an hour.
-
man leaves stove on, burns down entire building, 71 families homeless.
But it can go
All
Day
-