Riaz Capital Building Micro-Studios in Bay Area

In the housing-strapped Bay Area, one developer is turning not to tiny homes, but to tiny studios, to get tenants to move in.

Oakland-based developer Riaz Capital has been building studios in the Bay Area averaging around 300 square feet, notably less than the typical studio apartment of 500 to 600 square feet, The Mercury News reported. It’s doing so as a way to provide “affordability by design” for workers and other residents in need of a place to live on a budget.

The accommodations are barebones, with many units coming with two electric burners instead of ovens. At first, the initial units built by the company came with mini-fridges rather than full-size refrigerators, though it eventually began offering bigger ones at other developments. Because the units are smaller than normal, it allows Riaz to squeeze more into each building, making for a more manageable maintenance and operating budget, according to The Mercury News.

Though the apartments might be half the size of most studios, they aren’t exactly half the typical price. At the Arthaus Jack London building in Oakland, a former motel Riaz converted into 130 apartments, a 277-square-foot apartment goes for $1,750 a month, per Urbanize.

It’s the same price regardless of whether you’re renting a market-rate apartment or one of the income-restricted below-market-rate units for those making less than 110 percent of the area median income. In Alameda County, that works out to about $120,000 for one person.

“We’re trying to build naturally occurring affordable housing, versus income-restricted [housing],” Lisa Vilhauer, vice president of design and entitlement at Riaz, told The Mercury News. “Some of our units are rent-restricted — like the moderate-income units that we built so that we could be allowed to build more units in each property with the state density bonus program.”

As a result, Riaz “decided to focus” on those making between $60,000 and $120,000 annually.

Residents’ preference for living alone “really informed [Riaz’s] design,” Vilhauer said. Because many renters, such as travel nurses, come in for shorter periods, Riaz offers furnished apartments and leases that are less than a year long.

Riaz is planning to bring the micro-studio concept to other developments in the future. So far, it has built 2,200 residences throughout the Bay Area with another 3,700 in development across California.

— Chris Malone Méndez