Developer Neighborlee Living, led by Kurt Jetta, won approval from Palm Beach County for a four-story, 38-unit affordable multifamily project with micro-units as small as 240 square feet.
The county commission greenlit the project, dubbed Neighborlee Living Westgate, at a zoning hearing on Thursday. Slated for the 0.7-acre site at 2818 Westgate Avenue, the project is in unincorporated Palm Beach County near West Palm Beach, in an area zoned for growth governed by the Westgate Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).
Jetta said his target renter for the project is recent college graduates.
Micro-units are a growing segment of the pipeline for planned apartments nationwide. In April, Lyle Stern and Kerry Newman proposed a 400-unit Live Local Act project in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood that will include 40 micro-units. Proponents see the small scale of the units as an answer to the affordability crunch facing cities around the country. In Seattle, 66 percent of the city’s planned apartments are micro-units, Multifamily Dive reported in June.
Neighborlee Living Westgate will have 26 micro-units spanning 240 square feet, 10 studios spanning 360 square feet and two one-bedroom units spanning 538 square feet. The majority of the units are set aside for renters earning between 60 percent and 80 percent of Palm Beach County’s area median income (AMI), which is $104,000 as of 2024.
According to Neighborlee’s website, micro-units will rent for $1,200 per month, studios for $1,600, and one-bedrooms for $2,000. The studios and one-bedroom units also will come with a $250 per month voucher for childcare costs, the developer confirmed.
West Palm Beach has thousands of residential units in the pipeline, but the majority target a luxury demographic. Related Ross’ 322-unit apartment tower, the Laurel, opened last year, and one-bedroom rents start at $3,500, according to its website.
“I’ve always been wired to pay attention to the people making $50,000 and below,” Jetta said. “I just felt like they were underserved and misunderstood.”
He also pointed out that revenue per square foot is significantly higher in micro-units than in traditional units. Still, he said it’s difficult to pencil out the math of developing affordable projects.
“We were taken aback by the costs [of construction],” he said.
The Westgate micro-unit project is Jetta’s first development in Palm Beach County. Following his approval, he said he has a new understanding of how the process slows down much needed growth in the housing pipeline.
“We never ran into some cumbersome regulation,” he said. “Everybody’s well-meaning, everybody’s doing their job, but still, you don’t get the affordable housing output people want to see.”
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