NEW YORK—The deadline for submissions for the city’s micro-apartment program has ended, with 33 proposals received.
Announced in July, the competition is a pilot that could set the stage for reducing the minimum number of square feet for an apartment in New York City. Micro-apartments are expected to be between 275 and 300 square feet, but could be even smaller if design teams can fit a bathroom and a window in the space.
Current regulations stipulate that apartments be no smaller than 450 square feet, though anecdotal evidence and city officials suggest that smaller units already exist.
The Request for Proposals was made available on July 9 and was downloaded more than 1,600 times from hundreds of cities around the world through Sept. 14, the submission deadline. The four teams outside of New York are represented by Massachusetts, New Jersey, London, and Amsterdam.
The pilot program’s design proposals are for a city-owned site at 335 East 27th St. in Kips Bay, Manhattan, and must have at least 75 percent micro-units.
The winning team will be chosen in December, and, after a public land-use review process during which the proposal must pass through several entities, the start of construction is slated for December 2013.
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