NYC apartments could get even smaller

A new proposal to shrink the 400-square-foot minimum for New York apartments comes as 60,000 people applied for 14 “micro-apartments” in Kips Bay.

As part of his plan to reach 200,000 affordable housing units, Mayor de Blasio has put forth a proposal to allow apartments as small as 265 square feet, the New York Post reported. The City Council could vote on the measure as early as February.

Rachaele Raynoff, with the Department of City Planning, was quoted by the Post, saying that so-called “micro-apartments” would “provide greater flexibility in the sizes of units to better serve a more varied population in response to need and market demands.”

The Kips Bay apartments, part of an experimental project called Carmel Place, received a waiver to go below the 400-square-foot minimum, the New York Daily News reported in a related article.

De Blasio’s housing plan pointed to Carmel Place as evidence that “developers can build compact units that are livable, safe, [and] healthy,” the Daily News added.

“The pent-up demand has always been there,” Tobias Oriwol, the developer of Carmel Place, was quoted by the Daily News, which added that the 14 below-market Carmel Place units will rent for between $950 and $1,490 per month.

Available starting in 2016, the Carmel Place units will come with balconies, dishwashers and storage space, the Post added.

Micro-apartments have been approved in cities from San Francisco to Boston, but they may see more demand in New York, where one-third of households are single people, according to the Daily News.