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I spent my childhood in a 'quaint walk-up apartment building' in Europe, late 19th century vintage. Of all the places I lived in, it's probably the one I have the best memories of, but that's of course also related to being a child at the time. My best friend lived a floor up from us, and we spent a lot of days just outside in the neighborhood with other kids from the area (who all of course went to the school that was practically around the corner and we walked to and from). There were two parks within less than 5 minutes of walking.
But here's the thing - the building had 9 units basically. Most buildings in the area had around that number. And this being Europe in the 80s, it wasn't like a place in Queens or the Bronx where you may have 15 people in a 2 bedroom. Quite a few of those apartments were occupied by single seniors and even the families were 1-2 child families for the most part. It was a quiet little street in spite of being in the middle of a city because by city standards hardly anyone lived on the block.
Developers - private or public - don't build like that in Europe either anymore because they are in pursuit of efficiency. If you build a place in the middle of a city with less than 10 units, those would need to be high end luxury, and it doesn't seem to be very common anywhere these days. In most cases a developer would simply up the building height to squeeze more units into the same footprint.
Quaint? No thank you. I'll take safe and practical over "quaint" anytime.
Just wondering how many quaint, walk-up apartments are currently being built in London or Amsterdam?
"While 'quaint' is a word one might associate with a picturesque and charming little cottage, Lamudi warns that if it appears in a real estate advertisement, buyers can directly translate it to mean 'small'.
'If the size of the house is not specified in the advertisement, you can be sure that the "quaint" property is not very spacious,' a spokesperson said.
Often paired with 'quaint' is the word 'charming', also used to describe a small or old property."
Did you read/watched the video? The author was talking about housing shortage and the abundance of small apartments (not family size) due to the two sets of stairs rule.
With a little adjustment and reassessing century old rules, we could build more family size apartments with 3+ bedrooms and apartments that have windows on 2 or 3 walls (for aesthetics and better air circulation).
We love to stick to old rules and progress is slow...
BTW:
Quaint means ...attractive. Not small,as you suggest. The article/video is NOT about small apartments, either.
One of the reasons I suspect so many retiree's leave NJ is all the damn stairs to the front door of condo's and houses. Very few apartment buildings and condominiums have one to two stairs maximum to the front door.
It gets very hard for so many seniors to climb stairs and damn near all housing is for younger people.
It seems the real complaint is housing aesthetics under the pretext of housing need.
The complaint was the block-sized apartment complex as opposed to the narrow four-story building for multi-family housing.
No one wants to go up and down four stories of stairs every time they need to go to work, school, or errands. Nor is it fun to haul belongings up and down 4 stories of stairs when moving. It can't be fun carrying children (the other pretext was family housing) up and down 4 stories of stairs, tripping or falling on those stairs, carrying groceries up and trash down, or trying to get up and down those stairs in the event of any disability or injury.
At least the block-sized buildings can economically support having an elevator.
I watched the video, and I think I agree with him, for the most part. And yes, the code is often reevaluated, and changes are made. Sometimes, those changes loosen restrictions.
I see no reason why a single staircase couldn't safely serve, say, up to a 6 story building with a smaller footprint, if the staircase is properly fire-rated, and maybe insist that the building, or maybe at least the corridors, have a sprinkler system.
I would also point out that the historic buildings he uses as visual examples butt up against each other, creating a solid wall against the street. So, the window advantage is not there. We would still need to build small, separate buildings, to allow windows in each bedroom. Those European apartments may have light wells, but those don't allow for egress.
So, while I agree more or less, if these changes were made, we're not going to suddenly start building Parisian style streetscapes. But, it would allow for more family friendly apartment buildings (more bedrooms per unit) in urban neighborhoods.
I watched the video, and I think I agree with him, for the most part. And yes, the code is often reevaluated, and changes are made. Sometimes, those changes loosen restrictions.
I see no reason why a single staircase couldn't safely serve, say, up to a 6 story building with a smaller footprint, if the staircase is properly fire-rated, and maybe insist that the building, or maybe at least the corridors, have a sprinkler system.
I would also point out that the historic buildings he uses as visual examples butt up against each other, creating a solid wall against the street. So, the window advantage is not there. We would still need to build small, separate buildings, to allow windows in each bedroom. Those European apartments may have light wells, but those don't allow for egress.
So, while I agree more or less, if these changes were made, we're not going to suddenly start building Parisian style streetscapes. But, it would allow for more family friendly apartment buildings (more bedrooms per unit) in urban neighborhoods.
The thing is that an Apartment with three bedrooms competes against houses with three bedrooms in the rental market. This means that it must be cheaper to rent than a house. In addition families face more budget pressures than singles or dinks. This makes building such buildings less attractive to build. Anyway dense urban areas tend to be expensive and this factor alone drives families to less dense areas be it other areas of an city or the burbs.
Did you read/watched the video? The author was talking about housing shortage and the abundance of small apartments (not family size) due to the two sets of stairs rule.
With a little adjustment and reassessing century old rules, we could build more family size apartments with 3+ bedrooms and apartments that have windows on 2 or 3 walls (for aesthetics and better air circulation).
We love to stick to old rules and progress is slow...
BTW:
Quaint means ...attractive. Not small,as you suggest. The article/video is NOT about small apartments, either.
And who is going to rent those 3 br apartments when the same money can buy a house?
And who is going to rent those 3 br apartments when the same money can buy a house?
People who don't want to buy a house, for whatever reason.
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