Is Boston in danger of becoming Hong Kong? Will the city’s pilot “micro-apartment” regulations begin the slippery slope to coffin homes, subdivided living spaces so small in some cases residents can’t fully extend their legs? 

Steve Adams reports this week that city agencies have concluded a lengthy study of housing needs and ways to address them while maintaining adequate square footage and parking requirements. The proposed new regulations have maximum unit sizes but not minimum requirements; studios could be as small as 330 square feet before running afoul of the city’s required minimum of 225 square feet (not including kitchens and bathrooms). 

That’s certainly better than an 18-square-foot cubicle, and the new units in Boston will require minimum ceiling heights and larger windows; still, a 330-square-foot studio is tiny. That’s 10 feet by 30, smaller than a suburban garage. 

But if you’re never in it, does it really matter if the only things in your apartment are a shower and a bed? That’s the argument made by housing experts, that residents are just looking for a place to sleep; they spend most of their days at work (and commuting), in the city or in their building’s common areas. 

Boston is moving along the same trend as other cities; a 2016 analysis found that new units were shrinking and that Boston was then in the top 10 nationwide for average apartment size. That’s not surprising, given the age of the area’s apartments and how many were converted from two- or three-family homes. 

The proposed adjusted parking requirements for new developments are a no-brainer; while the housing preference pendulum may eventually swing back to larger living spaces, the march toward a carless future is well underway. Unfortunately that ties into one of the area’s other major issues – the state of our public transit system – but not all problems can be solved with one program. 

But these proposed compact living regulations don’t just apply to apartments – they also apply to condominiums. The median sale price of a condo in Suffolk County was just under $635,000 in June, according to The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, and it’s a good bet most of them were 1,000 square feet or larger. Could a 350-square-foot condo actually be affordably attained for many of the city’s residents? What a wonderful concept. 

So no, Boston is unlikely to turn into Hong Kong any time soon – but it could start to resemble New York City, where $1,000 monthly rent is impossible unless you literally live in a closet. (And the last thing Bostonians want is to turn into New Yorkers. The horror.) 

The compact living guidelines are one possible answer to the area’s housing shortage, but more importantly they are evidence that the city is taking seriously the problems housing advocates have been insistently pointing out for decades. 

Compact living may not solve the housing crisis, but city officials should be commended for taking another step toward a solution.