CrainsNewYork reports a conference in New York City to discuss the shortage and expense of housing in the city resulted in several innovative approaches by advocates and architects, including modular. Many of the proposals at the Citizens Housing and Planning Council are for smaller, cheaper quarters, and some suggest communal living with shared kitchen and bath facilities, and moveable walls to accommodate changing needs. However, city codes require a bedroom to be at least 150 square feet and have windows, and no more than three unrelated people can occupy the same residence. One participant noted that a room in a rooming house in days gone by that rented for $110 a week (in 2011 dollars) currently sells for $1,200 a square foot. Bob Limandri, commissioner of the Department of Buildings, noting that firefighters might have trouble getting into the small living spaces with all the equipment they carry in the event of an emergency says, “You have to figure out how to build bigger, and better, and modular.”
