Tiny apartments draw big interest as Charlottetown rents keep rising

The developer behind a major residential development on Charlottetown's west end is hoping to offer a partial solution to the city's affordable housing crunch: micro apartments.

Arsenault Properties is building two 35-unit apartment buildings at 54 and 58 Sherwood Road. Rents for the majority of the suites range from $1,480 to $1,620 a month.

But the buildings also feature six bachelor-style micro-apartments.

The units are only 325 square feet each — about a quarter of the size of the largest unit in the building — and rent is $675 a month, including heat and electricity.

Arsenault Properties president David Arsenault bills the units as "designed for affordability," and he says interest so far has exceeded even his expectations

"We've actually received almost 30 applications for these micro-styled units. We figure the price point has definitely helped us in that regard," he said.

"I think there's very few units, let alone brand-new units, that are in the price range that we are asking for these units."

The tiny units cost more than $2 per square foot compared to $1.28 to $1.50 per square foot in the larger units. But Arsenault said there are fixed costs associated with every unit in the building — things like plumbing and electrical hook-ups — that don't vary according to the unit's size.

'You pay more for less'

Connor Kelly, tenant network coordinator with the P.E.I. Fight for Affordable Housing, said tenants are ultimately paying more for less space with units like that.

"It's more expensive for the affordably designed units... you pay more rent per square foot in those units than you do for any of the other units," said Kelly.

"So, they say affordably designed, but it really just seems you pay more for less space."  

The only way to address the city's housing crisis, he says, is through governments and non-profits building more units that are publicly developed and publicly owned.      

Developer Tim Banks, CEO of APM Group, said that while micro-units have been offered in a few of his company's projects, they have experienced higher turnover as residents left to seek larger living spaces.

While the idea has seen some success in larger markets like Toronto and Montreal, he said renters on P.E.I. are looking for more than a micro-unit can deliver.

"Micros only represent about three to four per cent of the entire marketplace… there's not a real big demand for them," said Banks.

'We started small'

Arsenault said the building design didn't allow for more than three tiny units in each of the buildings currently under construction, but he's looking at whether a project made up entirely of tiny units might be feasible in the future.

The key, he said, is finding the right site. 

"It wasn't something that we've built and rented before, these micro-style units, so basically we started small," he said. 

The Sherwood Road properties also include four wheelchair-accessible affordable units in each building.  

The first of the two Sherwood Road buildings, which will also include four wheelchair-accessible affordable units each, is scheduled to welcome its initial tenants in August. 

"I think more of these units could have a positive effect on the housing crisis that we're in right now," said Arsenault.

"I think we could fill these units no problem — and more if we had them."