As housing prices continue to rise, more young people are abandoning the dream of homeownership. According to RouteFifty, housing prices in the U.S. have risen to six times the median income, compared with four times the median income two decades ago. This lack of affordable housing has made homeownership difficult for many and has also contributed to rising homelessness, with over 250,000 Americans living in shelters or on the streets in 2023.
One factor contributing to these affordability challenges is the shortage of available housing, and while various solutions have been proposed across major U.S. cities, one idea gaining attention is converting unused or underused parking garages and lots into housing units.
The standard structure of most garages, combined with their near universal dimensions based on the unitized size of a parking space, allows for prefabricated housing pods such as those used in L.A. to be easily placed within the facility’s concrete shell. These pods can also make use of the garage’s existing vertical circulation and utility connections.
In those instances where existing garages won’t work for a retrofit or unused surface lots exist, new construction designed specifically to provide affordable housing opportunities is typically preferable. Examples of such affordable housing options seem to be popping up everywhere, from a 30-story, affordable housing high-rise in Boston to a 16-story studio apartment complex which stands on the former site of an underutilized parking lot in Honolulu.
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