@39 - When you don't have enough affordable housing for singles, they form roommate groups and pile into dwellings that are suitable for families. This drives up prices for the family-suitable housing. Get those people into apodments and the cost of the cheaper family-suitable dwellings will fall. So while apodments don't directly benefit poor families, they benefit them indirectly.

I would have killed for a place like this 15 years ago when I was single. Single working folk need places like this. I lived with roommates in a house that should have been rented to a family with kids. Seriously it sounds stupid cause it's so fucking obvious but if you don't like density don't live in the city. 102 gets the win for common sense reason why this is a good thing.

I'm 27 years old and I'm a hairstylist. I absolutely love my job, and could not wish for a better career. I'm the manager at my salon, and get paid an hourly wage. I've finally made it past living paycheck to paycheck, but because I'm taxed on all credit card tips the difference between my gross pay and net pay is about half. I cannot afford to pay more than $600/month for rent. That is assuming I want to have electricity and eat food after paying rent. Affordable housing makes it possible for me to live in Seattle and have $ left over for those fancy extras(electricity & food). I certainly would love to live in something bigger than a shoe box, but that isn't possible inside the city of Seattle. Fuck snobby assholes who think affordable housing will bring hookers and crack heads into their neighborhood.

I have no problem with affordable housing, nor with anyone needing affordable housing. I've lived in tiny rented rooms in Asia, Europe, NYC, there's nothing weird about using the city as your living room and kitchen. There's a good point made by @102 that putting young people in places like this reduces the demand for houses that working families need. I like the idea of smart density in my neighborhood and city.

Call me an aesthetically obsessed dilletante douche if you want, but I think a design review for those would be nice. I had a change of fortune and bought a place that had small houses and trees across the street. Now it just has 2 anonymous blue blocks across the street and no trees. The people who live in those houses seem fine, I don't begrudge them a reasonable place to stay. The ranch houses that were there, I don't care that much. The trees, I miss. In a few years, I'll be able to sell my place and I guess go somewhere else so it's not that big of a deal, but I'll admit to a little bit of buyers remorse, my place has three windows and they all look at aPodments and I probably could have paid a lot less for my place had those been there when I was out trying to find something. A design review just says to the neighbors: "we understand we're all sharing a small amount of space, let's make a gesture at giving some semblance of place to a collection of buildings." End running rules and being deceptive doesn't engender much confidence in the developers good will to the people they're housing and the people around the people they're housing.

Nothing in this town is affordable anymore. Welcome to San Francisco North, well- without the comparable pay or culture.

The problem with all you people is that you are confirmed racist douche bags. Like the library in Ballard, these "apodments" are simply a way to keep the Black Man down.

"Some complaints about microhousing are, indeed, reasonable—and others are hysterical." -- Says Dominic Holden.... "So I'll just focus on the hysterical."

There are certainly aspects of the microhousing opposition which seem NIMBY, but there is a definite short-sightedness about the developer led proponents.

Hopefully no one is actually taken in by the myth that this is providing affordable housing in city that would otherwise not exist. Rent for these pods exceed the rents that could be paid "in city" elsewhere with considerably more space... enough for actual families even.

These pods are being built specifically in "hipster neighborhoods" by non-resident developers, because they generate the largest short-term return on investment for them. And while the majority of initial tenants will certainly be freshly college educated youths who don't need much space, they will not intend to "spend their lives" there... they will eventually pair up and move elsewhere.

And when Capitol Hill ceases to be the "it" destination (perhaps because everything that made CH desirable in the first place has been torn down and converted to "density") the crowds will move on, and those who have lived here for 20, 30, 40 years will be left with half empty eye sores built right to the edge of all 4 property lines, and because they are in now undesirable neighborhoods, the developers will disappear, and there they will stay.

The real reason developers build pods are not altruistic. It is greed. Dollars per square ft built on lots to maximize that sq footage. And because they don't have to go through the review processes that would be required if they included more kitchens.

Yep, the apodments are just filled with poor Black Men! Ha ha ha!

Regarding the concern that people with criminal backgrounds will be living in the aPodments, "We do background checks and credit checks on all of our customers," explains Jim Potter, who is developing six microhousing buildings. I obtained tenant applications for other microhousing units that ask about applicants' bankruptcy history, evictions, late rental payments, income sources, and bank references." is specious.

They don't provide any information as to whether or not people with criminal backgrounds will be able to live in this housing and what criminal background is ok or not ok. Apparently the reporter didn't think to ask? I'm used to one-side reporting from the Stranger but this is one-sided and shoddy. Count me as a NAMBY (not in anyone's backyard). I'll be at as many meetings as possible to protest this housing.

Forcing lower income people out of Seattle into the Kent Valley and Everett smacks of a policy in vogue in Europe about 70 years ago, The euphemism for it was "Resettlement to the East." Or "Liebensraum." Amazing how much like pure Fascists the elitist pukes of Capitall Hill have become with their opposition to affordable housing.

@ 91 - The community's concerns over aPodments needn't be painted as being simply a 'war against the poor'. Here's why:

I, too, am a lower-income working person. I've worked on Capitol Hill for 16 years - and used to live in the South end (Georgetown, Burien, and White Center). Yes, your rental dollar goes much farther outside (especially SOUTH of) the city. But my commute each way was 90 minutes, so 3 hours of each of my working days was spent on the bus. Even though I loved where I lived down south, I finally had enough of the commute.

When I started looking on Capitol Hill for a place to live, I quickly realized that my realtively low income actually qualified me for housing through either Bellwether (formerly Housing Resources Group) or Capitol Hill Housing. Through Bellwether, I found a 450 sq foot studio apartment for $775/month.

Had I chosen an aPodment instead, I'd still have to pay some storage rental place to store the majority of my belongings, so that would inflate monthly expenses. I would have had to get rid of my two well-behaved cats. For less than many 150-200 sq ft aPodments, I have 450 sq feet, my own full kitchen, my own full bath, beautiful hardwood floors, big sunny windows, and I get to live in a secure brick 1920's building that's 10 minutes away from where I work.

So: there ARE legitimate concerns over these developments, even from people like me: the working poor.

I don't want to live like an ant in an overpriced instant slum. The lie that no parking is needed as everyone will use mass transit, the poison leaking into the environment from a lack of surrounding green space, the hive like mentality of people crammed into far too little space to stay sane already exists.
Move to New York, Holden - you obviously hate Seattle.

Most of the recent anti-affordable housing comments here seem to be "new accounts". So the NIMBYs have discovered this story... I’m reminded of the High Five’n White Guys when I think about these NIMBYs.

122

#115, you've got it wrong. An apodment is the size of a "shower" room.

Your "shower room" is 150 to 250 square feet? Wow. Why don't you move to Mercer Island? The cops there keep the Hoi Polloi out. Fuck wad.

Yes, I agree that the architects should be also blame. It's a pity to see how these architects suck up to those developers. A company like S+HWorks (capitol hill's low quality architects, Sarah Hatfield and Hugh Schaeffer) lacks the ethics and responsibility to what good design is or could be.

I wish someone...anyone would answer the question why providing nothing more than a room is a good idea and why small one bedrooms or studio apartments are simply not part of the discussion.

Why have we decided the only two housing options in Seattle have to be high-priced condos or apartments that start at $1500 or a closet with a shared communal kitchen? Can't we have middle ground?

I have no dog in this fight, since I don't even live in Seattle, but maybe those of you who are opposed to these projects on basis of quality of life should notice that all the comments on this thread from people who have actually lived in aPodments have been positive. Also, I can imagine myself living in a place like this when I graduate from college.

#122, you idiot, go back and read the comment I responded to. But now that you mention it, each of my bathrooms is 150 square feet. Right here in Seattle. So is my sauna, and my hot tub, and my greenhouse. And yes, I think I will have fries with that order. And make it snappy, kid. I've got a meeting in 10 minutes.

I have no dog in this fight, since I don't even live in Seattle ...

... which means we don't give a flying fuck what you think.

The biggest problem I have with micro-units is that they are a stark admission that more and more people are not being paid enough to join the middle class. We have to provide ultra-cheap housing for all those retail, restaurant, and other minimum wage workers.

#128, if apodments cost $200 or $300 a month, I could see it. But at the rates they charge, they are not "ultra cheap." They are coffins for white yuppie wannabes who can't manage their money, built by corrupt developers who have an inside track into the best city government corruption can buy.

I'm a young teacher with a modest salary and a student loan burden to pay off responsibly. While I can understand why affordable housing options might be nice for someone like me, I'd rather preserve Seattle's aesthetic and property values in the long run. I believe that if anyone - young or otherwise in need of affordable housing - cannot afford to live in an expensive area of the city, then they ought to not live there. Northgate, West Seattle, South Park, etc. are still very affordable rental areas to live in and within the city. A young, college grad might not have as much fun living in Northgate, but they would be able to save up enough money doing so for a few years to be able to one day live in the apartment they want in Capitol Hill. No need to ruin beautiful city neighborhoods with these apodments just to get more residents in. Save your pennies until you can actually afford to live in the nicer neighborhood-don't ruin it just to make it affordable for you now.

The fact of the matter is that there are a LOT of over privileged people, especially up on Capitol Hill, who don't care one bit about whether rents are out of reach for other folks. They criminalize and stereotype people without any real. More than 50% of the cities population are renters but you don't see any of the NIMBY complainers organizing to keep housing affordable. If half the renters in the city joined the Tenants Union we could have a say in the cost of rents.

Yes, I agree that the architects should be also blame. It's a pity to see how these architects suck up to those developers. A company like S+HWorks (capitol hill's low quality architects, Sarah Hatfield And Hugh Schaeffer) lacks the ethics and responsibility to what good design is or could be.

#131, the "tenants union" is behind the new apartment inspection rules that will increase rental costs. They are also typically pro-mass transit, which is funded largely by property taxes, which increases rents. And if you're alluding to rent control, you'd better be careful what you wish for because that would backfire in a big way.

Capitol Hill has a long way to go to match pre-2000 density. Each single family house on the hill contained 10-20+ residents:

1900-1965- Catholic families(and their elderly and young adult relatives)

1965-2000 - Various combos of hippies, punks, gays, students, new grads, waiters ...

(note: not exact dates there were still large families in the eighties and confirmed bachelors renting rooms in the 1950s)

MAY I file charges against what he did to you?(And,yes:racism, not race,is playing a huge role in this CONtroversy.) --- http://www.wliha.org and -- http://www.fairrepresentationwa.org

Sounds like the typical "WEEEE in Seattle are so proud of our diversity and acceptance of other peo...oh, dear...is that a BLACK person? In MY neighbourhood! Quick, we must call a meeting!"

There are lots of areas in Seattle that would be improved by putting in this high density housing. It would provide the density to support better neighborhood business districts. I'm thinking of areas like Beacon Hill, Interbay, parts of West Lake and parts of East Lake, Dearborn, Rainier Avenue. Those are all areas that are close in, have good transit, and would be more affordable than the neighborhoods these micro-apartments are going in now.
Of course, the developers would not make as much money,because the developers would not be ripping off the hard work the existing neighbors had been doing for the past 50-100 years to create a desirable neighborhood.

But guess what? Poor people don't get to wear as nice clothes as rich people, drive as nice cars as rich people, take as nice vacations, nor live in as nice neighborhoods.

Seattle has plenty of space that could be developed better than it is, where this housing density would be an improvement and a welcome. Instead of sending hate to people who want to keep their quality of life, why not go to places where these developments would be welcomed?

Why not use these apartments to make Seattle better, not worse?

If people will move to Everett or Burien for affordable housing, surely they would move to the west side of Queen Anne, or Beacon Hill.

Could you imagine what the fuckwits would say if we told the po' folks in the housing projects that we were going to take away their cars and move 'em into apodments?

I lived in an apodment in Capitol Hill when I first arrived in Seattle. It was the only 1-bedroom in the city I could afford on my AmeriCorps non-salary, and it came with a bed and lamp! Also there were shared resources downstairs for everyone: vacuum cleaner, pots and pans, etc. It was kind of like a house share but I had my own separate living space. The people in my building seemed very young, mostly college students, and from different ethnic backgrounds. No one had cars (how does anyone have a car in Capitol Hill?! Parking is impossible!).

Now I have a real job and can afford a small 1-bedroom apartment in First Hill. I love having a full kitchen and a closet, but it's not THAT drastically different. I can still hear my neighbors blasting music, and a strong smell of marijuana still drifts up to my apartment from below like at the apodment. I agree with what a lot of the comments say about dense city-dwelling -- it's just par for the course of living in a major metropolitan area. But unless I lived in the countryside, I would still have to be able to get along with neighbors. Loud noise and parking problems show up in the suburbs, too.

Funny, I would think that the people who vote for 'green' and transit would be all over this sort of thing. After all, those two planks of the leftist dream machine are predicated on increased density and urbanization of the population. Guess all is not well in utopia-land.

@137 "Of course, the developers would not make as much money,because the developers would not be ripping off the hard work the existing neighbors had been doing for the past 50-100 years to create a desirable neighborhood."

Of course, by "existing neighbors" you mean the gays, artists, hippies, punks, and other subcultural dwellers who came before you and most of whom are actively getting priced out of the neighborhood?

What is amazing about the rental market is that I will hear from managers the phrase "market value". Which translates directly to "we are going to give you as little as possible and charge you the absolute amount of money possible also". My apartment building, which I moved out on 4/15 was not being divided up, but because of some new laws deposits have been dropped by many landlords in exchange for "fees", that do not need to be refunded at all. The addition of charging for water, sewer, garbage is also added to the cost of the apartment. And parking is also an additional fee. Now this would have been fine in my old building, however the agreement that I had made 23 years prior was water, sewer, garbage, parking were included. I finally found out that they wanted $800 in "fees" for my kittens that they were going to just show up one day and demand a new lease be signed. The apartment was affordable, a 1958 building on Queen Anne built originally as a "hotel" for the 1962 World's Fair workers. But when you are looking at a $400+ increase in rent, $800 in additional "fees", adding utilities (except electricity), and paying for parking which was changed after painting a few lines in the parking lot and a letter about how much it costs to maintain the building. Time to move. I found an apartment away from Queen Anne, that was at a "reasonable value" vs "market value". Utilities included, parking included, elevator, more up to date wiring, better water pressure (the old building had replaced the main water line with a line that was HALF the size of the original), dishwasher, washer and dryer, garbage disposal. So I went from a 3 bedroom apartment with a view of the Needle ($1525 per month) to a 2 bedroom a bit up north for $850. The high rents just mean that the owners do not care about keeping tenants, just raking in the profits before the 1000s of new apartments become available in the next year or so. Time for some rent control in Seattle before we are paying prices like they do in New York.

I find this argument ironic on the heels of Time magazines recent cover,lol.(You know,"Millineals live at home-blah,blah)Where do you think all your barristas, McD's workers, Walmart employees,ect can afford to live? I would have KILLED for an opportunity like one of these pods when I was making 12k a year in my 20's.Instead of having an option where a single female,in the food industry, could live by herself. I had to share rent/utilities with a constantly fluctuating crew of housemates that culminated in a 3k lawsuit against me when I was the one caught holding the bag(the house) when everyone split and it was time to pay for backrent,damages,ect..3k at the time was 1/4 of my annual net:/ Please think about this when you go through the drive thru or stop in at Starbucks.These people gotta live somewhere....

Man, what kind of world are we making when you have to pass a criminal background check to get housing?

How have we let the economy get to a place where $800 a month for a closet when the minimum wage is $1160 before taxes? When I was a kid, you could rent a decent studio apartment for roughly one week's salary on minimum wage.

We moved out of Seattle to be able to buy a house close to work my wife found in the suburbs. That job went away and now she commutes. It sucks, but the reality is that we still would have a rough time affording anything in the city now.

I gotta side with TheMisanthrope against #67:I guess that fucker never heard about sales taxes.(And if you're reading this,#67,do yourself a favor and Google "States with worst tax systems".I dare you,you troll bitch!!!!

All those corpsepirate offices funded by Us over the GENERATIONS:now THAT deserves a story by Mr. Dominic Holden,don't you think? ----- http://theyrule.net

Wow, lots of comments on this topic.

Let's make it simple...density is good. Shitty housing is bad. Apodments are the precursor to shitty housing in that they will be totally shitty housing within a few years because of high turnover and abuse. That's the nature of this type of a dormitory existence. It's a great argument developers have made, which the author of this piece has fallen for hook, line and sinker.

I've been poor my whole life and dealt with all manner of housing. This shit is not the answer...it's a temporary stop-gap measure for those of us who are on the cusp of being able to make it in a town like this. It's the yuppie ghetto.

Thank you for the best article/discussion I've seen of the issue of micro housing. I hope all of those who are fighting against small apartments listen and learn. I hope public officials will take appropriate action which will allow people of all income levels to live together in this community.

Kills me that people expect to be able to live in what will very likely always be expensive Seattle neighborhoods. It is not your right to live wherever you think your oh-so-important-self should be plopped down.

There is affordable, market rate rental housing within the city proper. It just isn't on Capitol Hill, Bell Town, Wallingford or Queen Anne. It IS in the Rainier Valley, Delridge and WAY up North. These neighborhoods have outstanding Metro or Link service into Downtown. But no, the whiners who are so full of themselves in thinking that they are to 'kool' to live where the real worker bees live, the many who know what they can afford and have made wise choices of where to live based on what they earn.

Instead you expect the City to toss out any sense of Zoning and Housing code sanity so that you can have your needs met at the cost of yet more old houses and apartment buildings on Capitol Hill being razed so that you can live the 'Seattle Lifestyle' with all the snobbish, phoniness that goes with it. I imagine that a lot of those now in favor of these microunits were all spun-up when old Craftsmans and Tudors were scraped for townhomes.

I investigated each of those claims, and here's what I discovered:

Oh. Gosh. Those "just so story's" and quotes from developers prove it! You've dispelled all the critics, for sure! (btw, your per square foot numbers are WAY the hell off. If you include the per sq foot rate city wide and the upper rate asked for aPodments - $800 per month)

How about providing some actual data and studies from other cities that have implemented ultra-expensive per-square foot micro-housing. you know actual facts rather than just some un-cited quotes from some random people.

#152, the Seattle fuckwits don't care about the facts. This is about yuppie wannabes and developers who pack the various comments sections, and hand out bribes to politicians and newspaper owners.

How is saying, "Anyone who can scrape up enough money to live month-to-month," different from saying,"Working poor, poor people on Social Security, and poor people in general?"

Seattle has too much land devoted to single family zoning, a holdover from the 1950s. We need to a will get even smaller apt sizes in Seattle. China has some 7 sf apts. That is not a typo.
http://www.businessinsider.com/beijing-e…

I guess I am most shocked at how far out in la-la-land these community activists are in terms of who the market is for an $800 studio apartment in the middle of town. Do they really think it's drugged out homeless people? No! That market is PRECISELY young professionals, students, and the sort of folks you want in your neighborhood.

Maybe when you have more income than you know what to do with and you can afford a million dollar bungalow in the best neighborhood, you lose some perspective.

@156 - $800 studio apartments might draw young professionals etc, but $800 a-pod-ments with shared kitchens? These attract young short-termers who will move on as soon as they outgrow the club scene, or realize they can't live on top-ramen forever.

As a *long* time resident of the Hill, I moved here long before it was "million dollar bungalows", and half of my neighbors are long term renters. I welcome "affordable housing" where people of meager means can (and will) move in and put down roots.

A-pod-ments are not affordable housing, and to call them that is an extremely bad joke. Their cost per square foot is two to three times the average for Seattle... which is the real reason that they are becoming an attractive option for *Millionaire/Billionaire* *Developers* who don't have to live next to them.

So the rights to "affordable housing" is not what you are defending, regardless of what you are intending. It is the right to exploit Zero-Review loopholes, and the right to Maximum-Return-On-Investment for a very small number of very rich developers.

All I can say about this article is WOW! And, I thought Boulder is 'the worst' for the ratio of housing density and lack of affordability.

This kind of open classist piggery is absolutely DISGUSTING for a city as "progressive" as Seattle!

I have news for the closet NIMBYs out there: Working-class people have a right to this city too. And we're going to fight for our fair representation in housing.