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If we measure our success in producing housing for people …
by counting the number of bedrooms…
this will have the effect of rewarding builders of studio and one-bedroom apartments…
at the expense of two-, three-, and larger dwelling spaces.
I propose that this is not what we want as a community.
This has been discussed in two previous articles, both from August 2022, over a year ago.
- “Dwelling Units per Acre” – Another terrible way of measuring housing — with over 600 views now.
- “Housing Units” and “Housing Density” – Why these are terrible ways to measure housing success.
“Dwelling Units per Acre” is a terrible way of measuring housing
Let’s say a developer wants to put up a family-oriented apartment complex on a parcel that’s 0.7 acres in size — that’s the size of Sorrel Place on 7th Street, or about half of a city block. The apartments are a blend of some 800 square feet two-bedroom units, mostly 1,000 sq.ft. three-bedrooms, and a smaller number of 1,400 sq.ft. four-bedroom units. The overall average size is 1,100 sq.ft. for the apartments, and the total area of the living space is about 36,000 square feet.
If the average size of the apartments there were to be 1,100 square feet, there’d be 33 apartments total. The density figure would be 48 units per acre.
If the developer instead made a blend of one, two, and three-bedroom units, with an average size of 824 sq.ft., which is what Sorrel Place actually is, then the density figure would be 64 units per acre.
And if the developer wanted to make the entire building consist of 394 sq.ft. one-bedroom apartments — as is being done at the Westwood Garden Apartments, as approved in January, 2023 — then there’d be 90 or so units, with a density figure of over 130 units per acre. Making 300 sq.ft. studios yields 120 units, which shows a density of over 170 units per acre.
Or make the apartments filled with 236 square foot studios, as exist in the “Top of the Line” studios at the Strombeck Properties “Parkway” apartments on Union Street near the Arcata Sports Complex, and you’ve got a density of over 200 units per acre.
So from 32 units per acre to 200 units per acre, all on the same parcel — depending on whether the developer wants family-type groups (or just groups in general) or individual renters.
The number of bedrooms or “doors” is far more important for our housing needs
The “family-oriented” apartment complex example, with 33 apartments, would house about 120 people. The 100% one-bedroom example, with 90 apartments, would house about 135 people (with half of the one-bedroom units occupied with two people). In other words, both fill close to the same level of housing needs — just for different types of persons in our community.
In the building trades, the term “door” is used as a means of describing the size of the apartment unit in terms of how many bedrooms it is.
The number of bedrooms is the key to creating housing in Arcata. Not the number of units.
If we measure our success in producing housing for people by counting the number of bedrooms, this will have the effect of rewarding builders of studio and one-bedroom apartments at the expense of two-, three-, and larger dwelling spaces.
I propose that this is not what we want as a community.