San Francisco is giving Twitter tax rebates to help grow a business that reduces our communications to 140 characters or less, and now the city’s Board of Supervisors has approved the creation of extra-small apartments for the Twitter drones who toil long hours in the company’s new mid-Market headquarters, along with their brethren at other tech companies, the target audience for these tiny living spaces.
Supervisor Scott Wiener today finally won approval for the “efficiency units” that he’s been pushing for months, apartments with living space as small as 150 square feet for up to two people (the total square footage with closets and counters will be at least 220 square feet, with an extra 100 square feet required for each additional resident), to be made available for monthly rents in the $1,200-$1,400 range.
Some progressive supervisors have expressed concerns about the vaguely Orwellian idea of cramming the city’s worker bees into ever-smaller living spaces, so the legislation initially caps the creation at 375 units and requires the city to study how it’s all working out. “As we do this, it’s important that we carefully study this,” Sup. Jane Kim, whose downtown District 6 is expected to absorb most of these experimental new units, said today.
But the legislation was approved on a 10-1 vote, with only Sup. John Avalos – the progressive favorite in last year’s mayor’s race – voting no. “Overall, this does not make a lot of sense in the San Francisco I know,” Avalos said. “I cannot stomach supporting this idea.”