When I was living in Philadelphia as a graduate student, new development was seen as a bit of a gift. I remember developers telling me that it costs the same to build in Philly as it does in New York, except that the rents are obviously a fraction in the former relative to the latter. So it was tough to make projects pencil.
At the same time, Philadelphia had a 10-year residential tax abatement program in place. I think it's still in place, but it may have been modified since I was there. Either way, it was essentially an incentive to develop or redevelop existing residential properties. In the case of a renovation, the taxes associated with any improvements were what got abated for the 10 years.
Put differently, it was an invitation to gentrify. Come buy an old row home, fix it up, and then don't pay any additional property taxes on those improvements. This was the way things felt at the time. So it was interesting to learn today that Philly's current development boom is about to get throttled down with a new mandatory inclusionary zoning policy that will take effect later this year. Gentrification, it would now seem, is a problem.
The policy requires that 20% of the units in any new housing development (with 10 or more units) must be affordable for at least a 50-year period. For rental households, affordability means 40% of the area median income (AMI). And for owner-occupied households, it means 60% of AMI.
I have already said pretty much everything I can say about inclusionary zoning. But one of the unique things about Philly's policy is that it is only going to apply to two of its Council Districts. It is not a citywide policy. This is going to create a strong disincentive to develop in these areas, and will likely force new development into surrounding ones. But maybe that's part of the point.
https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1399368976229097473?s=20
I came across the above floor plan over the weekend. I reshared it on Twitter and there was then a pretty good discussion about what people like and don't like. I mean, who doesn't like looking at floor plans?
The suite is 790 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. It rents, at least according to Bobby's original tweet, at $2,600 per month. That's $3.29 per square foot. I'm guessing that the apartment is in Philadelphia solely based on Bobby's location.
The divisive thing in this floor plan is the two inset bedrooms. Some people don't like these. But designing a good floor plan is like working through a puzzle. You have all these constraints (some of which are just personal preference) and you have to find ways to work around them.
When you're working with a deep urban floor plate, you pretty much have no choice but to design floor plans with inset bedrooms. Otherwise, the suites get too big and they stop making economic sense. I have talked about this a few times before on the blog.
So what you do is "bury" the bedroom(s) and keep the main living space as open as possible. In this case, the living/dining dimensions are about 17' wide x 10' deep. So a pretty good size, and certainly a very good width.
An alternate solution might be to flip one of the bedrooms up towards the main glass (keeping the second one inset). But given that you only have 17 feet to work with here, something is going to have to give. So if you made the living room 9' wide, you'd then only have somewhere around 8' for your bedroom.
Personally, I don't mind inset bedrooms, especially if they allow for more generous living spaces. So I think that this is a fairly reasonable and functional suite layout. I would have absolutely lived in an apartment like this when I was going to school in Philadelphia. (Is this even the right location?)
But if I were to make a few tweaks:
I would compress the bedrooms slightly to enlarge the living space even more. (Though if the target market is student roommates, perhaps the idea is to allow for a desk in the bedroom.) I would then flip the closets to the partition wall between the two bedrooms to improve sound attenuation.
I would also try and get the kitchen out of the hallway and into the main living/dining area. I don't know where all the plumbing stacks sit (see, constraints), but perhaps it just slides up toward the glass. Another solution might be on the other side of the upper bedroom (where there is currently a closet).
But what are your thoughts? Would you rent this apartment? Comments welcome below.
When I was living in Philadelphia as a graduate student, new development was seen as a bit of a gift. I remember developers telling me that it costs the same to build in Philly as it does in New York, except that the rents are obviously a fraction in the former relative to the latter. So it was tough to make projects pencil.
At the same time, Philadelphia had a 10-year residential tax abatement program in place. I think it's still in place, but it may have been modified since I was there. Either way, it was essentially an incentive to develop or redevelop existing residential properties. In the case of a renovation, the taxes associated with any improvements were what got abated for the 10 years.
Put differently, it was an invitation to gentrify. Come buy an old row home, fix it up, and then don't pay any additional property taxes on those improvements. This was the way things felt at the time. So it was interesting to learn today that Philly's current development boom is about to get throttled down with a new mandatory inclusionary zoning policy that will take effect later this year. Gentrification, it would now seem, is a problem.
The policy requires that 20% of the units in any new housing development (with 10 or more units) must be affordable for at least a 50-year period. For rental households, affordability means 40% of the area median income (AMI). And for owner-occupied households, it means 60% of AMI.
I have already said pretty much everything I can say about inclusionary zoning. But one of the unique things about Philly's policy is that it is only going to apply to two of its Council Districts. It is not a citywide policy. This is going to create a strong disincentive to develop in these areas, and will likely force new development into surrounding ones. But maybe that's part of the point.
https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1399368976229097473?s=20
I came across the above floor plan over the weekend. I reshared it on Twitter and there was then a pretty good discussion about what people like and don't like. I mean, who doesn't like looking at floor plans?
The suite is 790 square feet with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. It rents, at least according to Bobby's original tweet, at $2,600 per month. That's $3.29 per square foot. I'm guessing that the apartment is in Philadelphia solely based on Bobby's location.
The divisive thing in this floor plan is the two inset bedrooms. Some people don't like these. But designing a good floor plan is like working through a puzzle. You have all these constraints (some of which are just personal preference) and you have to find ways to work around them.
When you're working with a deep urban floor plate, you pretty much have no choice but to design floor plans with inset bedrooms. Otherwise, the suites get too big and they stop making economic sense. I have talked about this a few times before on the blog.
So what you do is "bury" the bedroom(s) and keep the main living space as open as possible. In this case, the living/dining dimensions are about 17' wide x 10' deep. So a pretty good size, and certainly a very good width.
An alternate solution might be to flip one of the bedrooms up towards the main glass (keeping the second one inset). But given that you only have 17 feet to work with here, something is going to have to give. So if you made the living room 9' wide, you'd then only have somewhere around 8' for your bedroom.
Personally, I don't mind inset bedrooms, especially if they allow for more generous living spaces. So I think that this is a fairly reasonable and functional suite layout. I would have absolutely lived in an apartment like this when I was going to school in Philadelphia. (Is this even the right location?)
But if I were to make a few tweaks:
I would compress the bedrooms slightly to enlarge the living space even more. (Though if the target market is student roommates, perhaps the idea is to allow for a desk in the bedroom.) I would then flip the closets to the partition wall between the two bedrooms to improve sound attenuation.
I would also try and get the kitchen out of the hallway and into the main living/dining area. I don't know where all the plumbing stacks sit (see, constraints), but perhaps it just slides up toward the glass. Another solution might be on the other side of the upper bedroom (where there is currently a closet).
But what are your thoughts? Would you rent this apartment? Comments welcome below.
ISA Architects recently completed a project in North Philadelphia called Tiny Tower.
It is a 6-level, 1,250 square foot single family home built on a small 12' x 29' lot. That's about the footprint of two parking spaces. It feels like a house you might find in Japan.
Its siting is on a secondary street, akin to a laneway here in Toronto. As you can tell from the above picture, the adjacent parcels are largely undeveloped and/or used for parking.
The height of the house is 38 feet and the section looks like this:
The kitchen is in the basement (along with a light well). The living room is on the main floor (entrance to the house shown below). The third level is a workspace. And the rest of the floors are bedrooms. There's also a rooftop patio. All of the circulation happens on one side of the house.
I don't consider 1,250 square feet to be a small house and so this post is not about that. "Tiny Tower" does, however, feel like an accurate name.
I like these kinds of projects because they are about taking something with little perceived value -- in this case a small parcel of land -- and creating something cool.
That's how you create the most value. You have to discover and do things that most other people are overlooking.
Images: ISA Architects
ISA Architects recently completed a project in North Philadelphia called Tiny Tower.
It is a 6-level, 1,250 square foot single family home built on a small 12' x 29' lot. That's about the footprint of two parking spaces. It feels like a house you might find in Japan.
Its siting is on a secondary street, akin to a laneway here in Toronto. As you can tell from the above picture, the adjacent parcels are largely undeveloped and/or used for parking.
The height of the house is 38 feet and the section looks like this:
The kitchen is in the basement (along with a light well). The living room is on the main floor (entrance to the house shown below). The third level is a workspace. And the rest of the floors are bedrooms. There's also a rooftop patio. All of the circulation happens on one side of the house.
I don't consider 1,250 square feet to be a small house and so this post is not about that. "Tiny Tower" does, however, feel like an accurate name.
I like these kinds of projects because they are about taking something with little perceived value -- in this case a small parcel of land -- and creating something cool.
That's how you create the most value. You have to discover and do things that most other people are overlooking.
Images: ISA Architects
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