Is 600 Square Feet the New Normal?

Thankfully the province finally recognizes the benefit to density. Places to Grow/Growth Plan have aggressive, and frankly challenging, minimum density targets.

We're a family of five, and live in a two-story, three-bedroom semi-detached. Bedrooms are a little tighter than ideal, and we only have one full bathroom (you read that right), but we've gotten along fine. The concept of the six-bedroom, three-garage home has always been absolutely foreign to me. How could anyone -- barring an enormous family -- need such a behemoth? How many rooms could you really use?

Still, secretly I'd prefer it if people stayed in the suburbs. Please, take the three-hour commute to your sprawling mansion and leave the urban market behind you, so the demand stays level and doesn't price people like me out of it.

Gloria: crack & hookers. That's how to keep reformed suburbanites out and prices low. Keeps Jane Pitfield away too.

I recently moved into 580 sq.ft and everyone thought i was crazy. I have started using Store Your Style for the storage of my seasonal clothes and I had Diamond Kitchens come in and re-build the cabinets in my kitchen and bathroom to create more shelving and space. Living in 580 sq. ft forces you to have less clutter and live a minimalist lifestyle.

Beerad: Hell yes!

The new abundance of downtown 'small unit' living has opened up a whole new realm of choice for people. I think that different housing-types appeal to different peole based on their living styles at a certain time of their life. No kids in your twenties?-downtown suits fine. A couple of youngsters aching for space, privacy, security, and peace-of-mind?-a backyard-place away from downtown is the only affordable way to go. Kids gone and culture calling?-Live walking distance to nightlife, etc. Hopefully gone are the days where people felt that they 'had' to live in the same place at age 23 as they do at 47. Its all about choice and flexibility.

I live in a 1 bedroom.
It's a fact of life today, as the income gap widens and higher paying jobs go bye-bye overseas, that we wil have to learn to just live with less.
About once a month I try to "weed out" stuff I just don't use anymore. I'd like to get it down to where I could fit everything in a studio apartment if I need to...the way the economy is going, someday, I may end up fitting everything I own in a shopping cart.

Two thoughts.

First, "Places to Grow" is actually quite weak. Portland, Oregon, under a Republican Governor no less, managed to impose a target of 60% (now 70%) of all development within the already urbanized area (non-greenfield development)

Places to Grow sets an objective of 40%, 20 years after Oregon adopted its standards, and doesn't even impose this new 'benchmark' until 2015!

I am not all that old (32) and I remember farms in the north end of Scarborough (Kennedy Road).

Now the sprawl reaches mindlessly so that there is virtually no break to the urban form from the Lake to Newmarket and from Oshawa to Stoney Creek.

We need more aggressive targets, sooner.

***

Second thought. We have finally begun to accomodate single people in appropriate sized housing through the downtown condo boom.

But, Jeremy rightly points out that other lifestyles/family sizes continue to need diffent accomodation.

That, however, does not mean as much accomodation as suburban developers are providing. More bedrooms, yes, a second bathroom, sure.

But why must we have a spare room in a 3-bedroom house? What happened to putting the kids on the couch and giving the guest the kids room?

Why can't we build more semis? Put more garages in the rear, and still have yards, but with 30 foot frontages like in the City, instead of 40', 50' and even 60'?

And where are the apartments/condos for families?

Developers need to be compelled by municipalities to be more creative, and required to find more efficient ways of housing larger families.

Gloria-a family of 5 sharing 1 bathroom? You deserve mom of the year for that alone!

James-Interesting note about comparing Toronto to Portland. Portland is an urban planning oasis in many ways and has always been way ahead of its time.

Steve-doesn't it feel great to get rid of stuff you don't need?

I just realized I'm preaching to the choir :)

We need to have more condos and lofts in central Toronto that accommodate families.

A condo or loft lifestyle shouldn't just be for when you are young or when you retire. People living in European cities or places like New York or Chicago spend their whole lives in the core of the city. And this helps to make the city vibrant and dynamic.

N Blox Condos at 799 College Street is designed with this concept in mind.

In a March 9, 2007 Globe and Mail article (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070308.re-mays0309/BNStory/RealEstate) John Bentley Mays says:

""A unit at N-Blox is intended to be as roomy as a detached house in many a downtown neighbourhood, with ample space for life's long haul from coupledom, through child-rearing years, back to being couples again. These are real homes, in other words, not starter apartments — and welcome gestures to high-earning, discriminating downtown people who would like to start their families in new houses, but who don't want to leave the city lights behind and move out to suburbia."

We should have a lot more condos built with this philosophy!!

Andrew: Actually, I'm just the daughter :-) But yeah. Somehow we haven't killed each other yet.

Don L-You must have hacked my computer because N-blox will likely be the subject of an upcoming post of mine. Great little development!

Gloria-tell your mom she should be on blogTO!

Unfortunately as cities become more desirable, the sacrifices that people are willing to make grow. Also, as the younger generations wait longer and longer to start families, the need for space shrinks. A quick search of my favorite website for Toronto Apartment Rentals shows that people are willing to pay about $3 per month per square foot in prime buildings. This is up from $2 just four years ago.

Demographics are pointing to smaller dwellings. More single people, smaller families, aging population and empty nesters, the desire for smaller more centrally located housing grows.

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